


DRAMAtical Murder Re:verse

by raiya_kun



Category: DRAMAtical Murder
Genre: AllMates, Alternative Universe - Allmates as Humans, Alternative Universe - Protagonist Ren, F/M, M/M, Multi, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-21
Updated: 2015-01-09
Packaged: 2018-02-26 12:05:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 27,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2651426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raiya_kun/pseuds/raiya_kun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seragaki Ren, twenty-three. Quiet and subdued, he has lived a rather uneventful life in the isolated island of Midorijima with his AllMate Aoba and adoptive grandmother Tae. That is, until he found himself thrust into a messy tangle of mysteries and encounters, all of which seem to be tightly connected to the truth about himself and the unusual ability he learns he possesses. A loose reimagining of DMMd in which Ren is the protagonist and the AllMates are the humans.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello /o/ Oof, thank you for taking the time to read this m(_ _)m It's not my first fanfic, but it is my first for the DMMd fandom (and my first for AO3, so please forgive my mediocre html/css skills), plus it's been a while since I've done something like this, so I hope you can be kind QwQ. Like the summary says, it's an AU with Ren as the protagonist (has long been an obsession of mine) and the AllMates as t̶h̶e̶ ̶b̶o̶y̶f̶r̶i̶e̶n̶d̶s̶ his companions. It'll be a mix of stuff from the original DMMd storyline and a bunch of my own headcanons, so I hope you find it interesting. Please enjoy o/

․․․ｗｉｌｌ ｙｏｕ ｃｏｍｅ ｔｏ ｍｅ？

․․․ｈｕｒｒｙ․․․

․․․ｉ＇ｖｅ ａｌｗａｙｓ ｂｅｅｎ․․․

․․․ｗａｉｔｉｎｇ․․․

․․․ｗａｔｃｈｉｎｇ․․․

․․․ｂ-ｉ-ｎ-ｄ ｍｅ․․․

․․․ｗｉｔｈ ｙｏｕｒ․․․

 

The shrill sound of a phone ringing stirred Ren from his sleep, and his eyelids fluttered open slowly as his location at the moment gradually registered in his head; the whitewashed color that greeted his eyes could not be anything else but his workstation in Heibon. With a small exhale, he furrowed his brows and straightened up on his chair, the old springs inside creaking slightly at the shift of weight.

“…I…fell asleep…?” he mumbled to himself, rubbing the side of his forehead with a finger. How terrible it was, to do so at work. And how long had he been out? Not long, he hoped. At the very least, there did not appear to be anyone else in the shop when he looked around. Bonjin-san, the shop owner and his employer, was still not back from picking up their newest shipment. He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand and then quickly ran his fingers through his unruly dark hair to get his bangs off his face. What he would give to actually pin down the thing, which fluffed outward around his ears down to the top of his nape. No amount of combing seemed to do the trick, and Ren simply surrendered to his fate and living with it.

The ringing continued, and Ren shook his head to drive the remaining drowsiness away and reached for the bulky wireless phone sitting on the desk in front of him, pressing the green button on its keypad and raising the receiver to his right ear.

“This is Junkshop Heibon,” came his rehearsed greeting. “How may I be of service to you?”

“Oh.” The one on the other side of the line—a man, judging from the tone of voice—dawdled for a moment, as if struck dumb. He made a few small, hesitant sounds before speaking again: “A-ah…May I ask if…by any chance…you have stock of the new parts of the S3 AllMate models…?”

“S3? Please wait a moment.” Ren's long fingers glided over the keyboard of his desktop computer while he held the phone between his cheek and shoulder. A few taps on the keys and he brought up a digital copy of the shop's inventory on the screen. “It would appear we have parts that were delivered a few days ago. Do you have any further specifications as to which ones you are looking for?”

“Ah…oh…um…well, not really…”

“We have new stocks of the S3 processor chips and circuit boards. If you are looking to upgrading your model's memory, we also have memory expansion blocks.”

“I-is that so…?”

“Would you like me to look up compatibilities with a specific model series? Do you have a Base or a Nano series model?”

“N-no…I-it's fine, really. I-I …”

Ren blinked and raised his brows at the caller's palpable hesitation. “What is that, sir? I am afraid I am not able to hear you clearly.”

No sound came from the other end for a couple of seconds, and Ren though the line had been cut and was about to set the phone down when he heard a long defeated sigh. “I was…you see…I was wondering if I could just…just talk with you, if it's not any trouble that is.”

“Talk with me?” Ren parroted, confused at the request. “Are we not doing so right now?”

“Y-you see, I've already called a few times before and I…Please don't find this weird, but whenever I talk to you—whenever I hear your voice—I feel oddly calm and I was hoping—”

_Oh,_ Ren thought. It was because of _that_. Come to think of it, the man's voice did sound oddly familiar when he heard it. Maybe he should have seen it coming.

“—I recently separated from my wife, you know—she ran off with the carpenter next door, of all people. And I got fired from my job last week too—my boss is such an asshole, firing me only because they need to cut costs…”

A silent breath slipped through Ren's closed lips. How many times has he heard things like this? If he did not do anything, the man on the other end could probably go on forever—he had even already segued to narrating how he had gotten an eviction notice on his apartment for not being able to pay the rent for the past three months, followed by a tirade on his landlord's callousness. Simply putting down the phone would most definitely save him a lot of time, had it been a caller to his own house, but this was a (potentially paying) customer, and it definitely would not do for him to simply brush him off like that.

“I give you my deepest sympathies, sir. However, I believe it really would be much more prudent and logical for you to talk of these matters with a close friend rather than a stranger like me. You may find much more comfort and support that way, compared to sharing your experiences with me.”

“No, wait!” The man's voice rose with a hint of panic, perhaps sensing Ren's attempt to end the conversation. “Look… _please_ , may I talk to you for a little while more? Oh, it's because I was babbling on earlier, wasn't it? I can stay quiet if you want me too. Forget everything I told you. I'll shut up, and you can talk about whatever you want.”

“I'm afraid I cannot do that, sir. I am in the middle of my shift at the moment.” Besides, what did this man expect him to talk about, anyway? And what for?

“Th-then—! Ho-how about afterwards? What time does your shift end? I can come over, and if you want, I can treat you anywhe—”

“I sincerely apologize,” Ren cut in, his brows beginning to furrow at the man's insistence. “I can only be allowed to handle orders and such transactions for our shop, sir. Otherwise, I would have to ask you to hang up. I hope you can understand.”

The man went silent again, and Ren thought that he might have finally gotten him to stop, when he heard a feeble mutter: “Then…if…if I order anything, can I keep on talking with you?”

In all honesty, Ren would have preferred to say no, but doing so would have been turning down a sale away, over and above the fact that it _was_ technically true that they would have to continue the conversation if he was to process an order. “I would of course need to verify details from you, if that would be the case.”

“O-okay, I'll order then!”

It eventually took fifteen more minutes before Ren could finally free himself from the caller. He set the phone down on its stand and took a deep breath. That was the sixth time for that week that he had to deal with customers on the phone who insisted on talking to him for as long as possible. All of them seemed to be dealing with grave problems one way or another (he's probably heard more life crises that past week than a professional counselor), and for some odd reason, they would keep insisting that hearing Ren talk calmed them down or made them forget their worries. Often both. Almost all of them had offered to meet him after work too, with at least two trying to bribe him with a questionable amount of money for his company—and these were people who had not seen him in person even once.

“Another fan of yours, Ren?” asked a lively voice from behind him. He whirled his chair around and settled his gaze on a small light blue border collie sitting up on the shop's linoleum floor and staring up at him, its bushy tail wagging slowly. A pair of bright pink headphones hung snuggly around its neck, where much of its fur was gathered into a soft fluffy collar of hair.

A small smile appeared on Ren's lips. He reached forward to gently rub the top of his AllMate's head. “I do not think ‘fan’ would be the proper term, Aoba.”

“Hm. But you _have_ had a lot of long calls lately. They're getting more insistent?”

“Apparently. I do not understand what they find so enticing with my voice though.” There was no denying that he had quite the baritone—his voice was lower even than those of people beyond his age—but that could not be the only reason why these callers were giving him so much ardent attention. If anything, Ren thought he would sound more intimidating rather than comforting or relaxing, not that he has ever tried to sound anywhere near intimidating.

A yawn crept up his throat, and Ren withdrew his hand from Aoba's head to cover his mouth as he let it out.

“Ah, that's right. Fell asleep, huh?”

“Please tell me I had not slept for too long. And why had you not woken me up?”

“Relax. You dozed off for barely five minutes. My sensors detected you had a drop in your core temperature again, though. That was probably why you fell asleep so fast.”

“Is that so…?” Ren crossed his arms over his chest and felt himself tremble a little. Aoba was right; he did feel slightly chilly, even underneath two shirts. (Granted, one of said shirts was supposed to be a long-sleeved one, but the left sleeve had been cut off all the way up to his shoulder, and he couldn't remember how or why or exactly when he had it cut off.) He assumed it might have been because of the airconditioning in the shop. Summer had just started, after all, and temperatures outside were beginning to rise rather fast. Still, he could not help but be a little concerned. His body's manner of regulating temperature was not exactly “normal.”

He heard a quick series of high-pitched beeps, which meant he had gotten a message on his coil. He brought his right wrist up and tapped a button on the smooth cobalt blue device wound around it. A bright holographic screen lit up a few inches away from his face, listing his messages, and at the top was one marked as new, with “Please come and bind me” as the message title.

“Merciful…Goddess?” He raised a brow at the unusual name displayed in the sender's field. Weird. As far as he knew, the coil network did not accept such vague names, not with its strict user information provisos. “Aoba, what do you think?”

“My detectors didn't flag anything. Although it really does sound fishy. There've been notices about messages spreading malware and bugs, so it's best to take care. Even if it's not malware, it might be another of those porn ads, like that one you got the other day. ‘Bind me’ sounds like it could be one of those bondage kink videos, you know.”

Ren grimaced. “I'll delete it, then.” He tapped one side of the holographic screen and brought up the message options, but before he could point his finger to the “Delete” button, something heavy suddenly landed on his back and shoulders, almost toppling him off his chair. His eyesight was also blocked, with a pair of hands pressed over his face.

“I got him! I got him!”

“Uwah, Kio! You did it!”

“Make sure not to let go of him!”

“What—” Ren rose from his chair, bringing along whatever had latched onto him. He hunched forward a bit, though, to make sure the one behind him did not fall off. He heard mixed sounds of glee and fright, and he sighed as he grabbed the hands over his eyes and tried to pull them off.

“Hey, you brats! Leave Ren alone!” Aoba's outburst confirmed for him who his out-of-the-blue tormentors were—not like there could be anyone else.

“Let me go, Kio,” he asked calmly. In response, the hands on his face gripped him tighter.

“Ooh! Kio's so high!”

“Woohoo! I'm flying!”

“I want to go next!”

“I said leave Ren alone!”

Ren pressed his lips together and grabbed Kio's wrists, applying enough pressure to easily pry the boy's hands away from him and slowly settle him down back to the ground beside his siblings. There was some slight stinging around his eyes, undoubtedly thanks to Kio's grip.

The boy wore a disappointed expression as he yanked his wrists back from Ren. “Aww! You party-pooper.”

Ren knit his brows together as he looked at the trio of siblings before him. “Kio, Nao, Mio, I told you to stop doing things like that.” The children loved jumping at him from behind, doggedly amused at his height and the way he could get them a good several inches of the ground.

Mio, the eldest and only girl, huffed and crossed her arms over her chest. “And you think we'd listen to someone so uncool like you?”

“Do it again, again!” Nao, the youngest quipped, as he waved his hands playfully in the air.

“What were you trying to do anyway?”

“We were arresting ya.” Kio placed his hands on the back of his neck and grinned. “Cause you were watchin' porn.”

“I was not.”

“Yes, you were, perv!” Mio pointed to his coil. Much to Ren's dread, he found the screen flashing a small rectangle with the words “Download Complete” flashed across it.

“Ugh…It was not a worm program was it…?”

He was about to ask Aoba to do a scan when he heard the trio erupt into a ruckus again, crowding around one of the tall shelves. Nao had started to hold his sister up, and Mio was reaching for one of the robot plush toys on the top of the shelf, while Kio was shaking one side to get their target closer to the edge and easier to grab. Surprisingly, Aoba was already at their feet, tugging at the hem of Kio's shirt with his teeth and repeatedly telling the three to stop.

The sight of the shelf leaning forward dangerously close to toppling over the children and his AllMate was enough to get Ren to lunge forward and steady the shelf with one hand and grab Mio by the collar with the other. “That's dangerous!”

The girl pouted and stuck her tongue out at him. “You are _really_ uncool!”

“It is not a matter of being cool or not. It is dangerous for you to be recklessly doing things like that.”

“Blah, blah—,” that was Kio, who was still holding onto the side of the shelf opposite Ren, “'s not like you sell off a lotta these things anyway!”

“What is happening here?”

The three kids, Aoba, and Ren simultaneously turned towards the door of the shop and found a man with thinning salt-and-pepper hair, thick spectacles, and drooping eyes standing in the doorway. “Bonjin-san,” Ren started, a bit concerned at having been caught by his employer dealing with the naughty siblings.

Bonjin looked at the children and a deep crease appeared between his brows. Even more so than Ren, he had been very acquainted with their antics and was well aware of what to expect whenever they were around. “O-oh, it's you three. Hello…” The displeasure was obvious in the shop owner's voice. “We-well, you shouldn't be playing recklessly like that. You might get hit if those things fall down so—”

“Augh! Here's another killjoy!”

“Yep! He's just as boring as Ren is!”

“Boring wrinkly geezer!”

At Nao's last statement, a chill swept over the junk shop, and all of the occupants immediately froze in place. The wide smiles the sibling trio had been sporting just a split second ago began to dissolve into lopsided curves as the dread of realization sank in. Even Aoba, who had been wagging his tail absentmindedly, stopped and went rigid.

Meanwhile, Ren was the only soul brave enough to sneak a peek at Bonjin.

“What… _was thaaaaaaattttt?_ ” That cold, slithering tone meant only one thing. Even with Bonjin's smiling face, Ren swore he could see the fires of hell burning from behind his back. “ _Can…you repeat that againnnnnnnnn_?”

“E-eh…?” Nao seemed to shrink into his oversized jacket, and Ren thought of how he could probably pity the boy at the moment, even considering all the trouble Nao and his siblings were giving him just a short while ago.

“ _Could you say that again, Nao-kun? I'm a boring whaaaaaaaatttttt?_ ”

“W…w-w…”

“ _Haaaaahhhh?_ ”

“W-wah! M-my tummy hurts! I'm gonna go home now, bye-bye!” Nao ducked away from Bonjin's gaze and rushed out the door without another word. His siblings immediately followed suit, with the outspoken Mio shouting over her shoulder that adults were useless and boring.

The children's hasty retreat did not seem to have an effect on the aura Bonjin was still emitting. Aoba gave his owner a quick nudge on the leg and whispered, “It's not gonna be good if you leave him like that.”

Ren gave the dog a nod and took a deep breath. “B…Bonjin-san?”

“ _Yyyyeeesssss, Ren-kun?_ ”

“I-I made a good sale today. A customer called for S3 parts, and he ordered a good number of them. I actually have the tab on the desktop, if you want to see it…”

“ _Iiiiiiiisssssss ttthhhh–_ that so?” It happened in a blink of an eye, but Bonjin was suddenly back to his usual self, much to Ren and his AllMate's relief. The older man put on a smile again and walked to Ren, patting him on the shoulder. “That's great! As always, I can count on you, Ren-kun!”

“T-thank you, Bonjin-san.”

The shop's owner then turned around and headed to the desk Ren was sitting on a while ago, letting out a big sigh—Ren could not figure out if he sensed relief or some hint of exhaustion. “Those kids sure are a handful. It must be nice being so young like that, not having too much to think of and not getting too preoccupied with things. Not like us adults, am I right, Ren-kun?”

“R-right.” The only thing the dark-blue-haired male could do was agree, although the other man's words were not like those of the usual conversations he was used to having with his employer. Well, he figured, a bit of pensiveness would naturally come with age.

“Oh, that reminds me. Ren-kun, would you mind bringing a package to the courier for me?”

 

* * *

 

The courier service nearest to the shop, a good five blocks away in the fringes of the South district, was Delivery Works. Ren had no particular qualms about walking the distance (thanks to the decrepit transportation system nobody could rely on), even passing through a good part of the alleyway and side streets that most people in the Old Resident District feared for all the dangers that lurked there. To Ren, all that was simply part of a day's work. Unfortunately, though, what _did_ give Ren a few second thoughts when it comes to running the courier errands was having to deal with the people who ran Delivery Works.

 “A good afternoon to you, Ren,” was the greeting that came the moment he and Aoba stepped in through the door. It was not hard for him to find to whom the voice belonged to, with her standing behind the counter on the other end of the shop and looking straight at him with a subdued but nevertheless bright smile.

 “Go…good afternoon, Clara.” She was the only daughter of Delivery Works' owner, Yoshie, who was very much fond on doting on her. Ren thought that that type of upbringing could only be the reason why Clara acted with some air of royalty around her, even if she lived in the East district and not in the prestigious Platinum Jail on the other side of Midorijima.

Clara fluttered her eyelashes and tossed her mocha brown hair, some strands of which were tied back with a large pink ribbon, over her shoulder with a flourish. “You look as handsome as always. That jacket suits you well.”

 “Th…thank you very much.” The dark gray jacket was wearing was already old, with a few rips and restitchings here and there, so he could not understand the logic behind Clara's constant praise of it (she made it a point to say it suited him every time they met), but he said nothing of it and simply countered the compliment with, “Your new ribbon looks good on you too.”

The girl's cheeks flushed a bright pink. “Really? I bought it only yesterday, from Candy Apple. They only had limited stocks, you know? Oh, do you have something for me to send? And why are you standing so far away?”

Ren gave an awkward upturn of his lips in reply. He had not had the best experience with socializing with Clara or her mother, actually. They were quite obviously fond of him. A bit too fond. And unfortunately, Ren could not say the same for himself regarding them.

“Ugh, better to give her the package already so we can go,” he heard Aoba mutter from below him. The AllMate shared his owner's discomfort, although it was definitely much more apparent, thanks to that one time when Clara tried to transform him into her personal dress-up doll by putting him into a pink tutu and braiding and twisting his hair before tying it up with neon elastics.

Ren walked up to the counter and pulled out from his messenger bag the package Bonjin had given him, along with a slip of paper. “Can you send this to the West district? Bonjin-san wrote the address here. He said he would appreciate it if you can somehow get it there by tonight.”

“Of course,” Clara replied curtly, before slowly moving to take the package and brushing her fingers over Ren's in the process. Aoba, who caught the gesture, huffed in irritation and turned to the side. Ren, on the other hand, said nothing and continued to smile.

She took the package to a delivery chute a few steps away and slipped it inside, then punched in the address on the slip of paper on the keypad beside it. There was a small chime, indicating that the package was on its way.

“Thank you very much. I will be on my way then.” Ren bowed, arms clipped stiffly to his side.

“Wait.” He was about to head toward the door when he heard Clara. Her voice had taken on a stern, commanding tone very different from the one she used earlier. “Is that all, Ren?”

The question confused him, but he gave a curt “Yes.”

Clara narrowed her eyes, her lower lip jutting out in a noticeable pout. “And here I was, thinking we could have some time to have a decent talk after a while. It's been some time since you've passed by here, after all. But I guess you're not up for it…” She let out a drawn-out sigh, crossing her arms over her chest and facing to the side away from Ren.

“Oh for god's sake…” Hearing Aoba's muttering, Ren glanced at the collie AllMate, whose left eye was beginning to twitch. Its black eyes moved to stare at him, an unspoken and insistent “Let's _go_ ” emanating from them.

Ren was confused. On the one, more preferable, hand, he definitely shared Aoba's desire to leave; on the other, more excruciating but nevertheless unignorable, hand, he could not simply go on such a potentially cold note, especially considering how Clara and her mother were very accommodating people who have helped him and Bonjin several times, and he was definitely going to interact with them many more times in the future, given that Delivery Works was perhaps the most trustworthy courier service in the Old Resident District.

He could feel both Clara and Aoba giving him intense stares, and two widely differing replies were fighting each other on his tongue. Ren took a deep breath, reached up to rub the back of his head, and said, “I don't really have anywhere important to be at the moment—”

Clara was quick with her attack. Before Ren could even finish his sentence, she had returned from the machine to the counter, making him almost jump back in shock. “I have always known you aren't the type of man to leave a young lady behind just like that, Ren.”

(Ren gave a pained smile at the compliment. At the corner of his eye, he spotted a disgruntled and defeated Aoba walking off and plopping himself down by the door.)

“Tall, dark, handsome, polite, and chivalrous. You can almost give Kaiser Matsuoka a run for his money!”

“K-Kai…? Who—?”

“He's a drama actor. Haven't you heard of him? Ah, but I suppose you haven't. He's big in Platinum Jail, though.” Clara took her attention away from Ren for a brief moment to press a button on her coil, bringing up a holographic screen with the face of a flashy young man with brightly colored hair and clothes. She held it up in front of him, her face bright with unhindered admiration. Loud music suddenly began to blare up from her coil, as Ren realized that it was not a photo she was showing but a video clip. The man—Kaiser Matsuoka, he assumed—spun around and tossed his hair back with a flourish, before looking straight at the camera and saying, “I'm grateful to you five million times over, _baby_.”

“What do you think? He's an eyeful, isn't he?”

“We-well…h-he is rather unique, I suppose…”

Clara pulled her coil back. “Mom and I got the entire set of all his dramas. They were hard to get, and I'm sure we're the only ones who have them here in the Old Resident District.”

“If he is a Platinum Jail actor, then would that not normally be the case? How were you able to acquire anything about him in the first place? Does Toue Co. no longer restrict merchandise and media like that to Platinum Jail members?”

Clara paused, then bit her lower lip as if she just realized she had said something she should not have. She clasped her hands together over her mouth, then leaned in close. “I-I shouldn't have said that, but…I guess I can trust you, Ren. You can keep a secret, can you?”

“…I believe so.”

“Mom made a new business partner. They transport merchandise out of Platinum Jail. Mom says everything is legal, but they don't want the people in the district to know, so we're not supposed to be telling others.”

Ren knit his brows together. “Is that so?”

Clara sighed and nodded. “It's annoying though, having to keep mum on everything. We've had secretive clients before, but none as strict as them. So I don't really have anyone other than Mom to talk with about Kaiser Matsuoka.”

“I cannot say much with regard to how Yoshie-san handles the business, but I do hope you take special care in handling such transactions.”

“My, are you saying that you're worried about me, Ren?”

“I simply thought that would be the wisest decision to make. Considering the circumstances.”

“Oh? How cold.” Clara made a disappointed expression. “Not like I don't like that part of you too. That aloofness _is_ part of your charm, after all.”

“Pardon me?”

“Oh, speaking of that, that reminded me of Kaiser Matsuoka in _The Prince of Ice_! He was absolutely amazing there! Wait, I have the entire set of that somewhere here…”

 

* * *

 

The sun had long set when Ren had managed to escape from the impromptu Kaiser Matsuoka marathon Clara had dragged him into. As he walked away from the courier shop, he pinched the top part of the bridge of his nose, attempting to abate the throbbing that had begun around that part of his head.

“You should've just said no. You know Clara can go on and on.” Aoba's words had a scolding tone, but the AllMate was undeniably worried about his owner as he gently nudged Ren's leg with the top of his head.

Ren smiled at the gesture and bent down to give Aoba a rub between his ears. “I'm sorry. I had thought it would be rude. But I will keep your reminder in mind for next time.”

“You're too open to letting people take advantage of you. It's frustrating.”

“I'm sorry. I'll keep that in mind.”

Aoba gave him a glare. “Stop apologizing so much and just do it. And what was with Clara and that Kaiser dude, even? He's all flashy and flamboyant—I don't see what's so good about him. ‘Grateful to you 500 times over’? _Yech_. Is that what Platinum Jail people are into now, seriously?”

Ren straightened up. “It isn't that surprising, if I think about it. Platinum Jail has always been eccentric, although it's different when you actually see just how eccentric the people there are.”

“Come to think about it, isn't what Clara said weird? Would Toue Co. even allow anyone to take anything out of Platinum Jail?”

“I do not know…” It was true. Toue Co. and its founder, after all, had basically cut off Platinum Jail from the rest of Midorijima, even if they still existed on the same piece of land. Platinum Jail with its strict rich-members-only access to its perpetually sparkling and glittering buildings and roads (at least, that was how people in the district imagined it, since no one has exactly seen past the high walls and gates separating them from the Jail), and the Old Resident District with its rundown constructions and limited water and electric supply. Toue would not even share access to the Jail's private broadcast channel with the country's mainland, much less with the Old Resident District, so it was definitely unusual for Clara to have the access she has to someone like Kaiser Matsuoka.

“ _Oi_ , stop! Thief!”

Ren was pulled out of his thoughts by the sound of a familiar voice shouting. As he spun around to see where it was coming from, a figure suddenly crashed into him, throwing him back of his feet. By instinct, he reached out to grab onto something to break his fall, and his hand wrapped around something that felt like a long strap. He did not have much time to verify, though, as the upper part of his right arm hit the pavement and he reflexively gave whatever it is he held onto a strong tug.

“Ren!” Aoba was instantly at his side. “Are you alright?!”

The arm he landed on groaned with pain—but thankfully bearable pain. “I-I'm fine, I think…” He pressed down on the ground with his opposite hand and pushed himself up to a seating position, wincing as the movement made his arm hurt. There was a prickling sensation that bloomed on a spot some inches below his shoulder, and it traveled around his arm as if it were a row of dominoes falling down one after the other.

“ _Oi,_ bastard!” He saw a red blur leap up fast and then slam squarely against the figure that had crashed into him, tackling it to the ground and then straddling it around the torso. “You thought you could escape me, huh, you punk!”

“Beni?” Ren absentmindedly called out, as he laid his eyes on the matching red _uwagi_ * and hair that were all too familiar, even as he saw them from behind.

Beni, who was holding the other figure by the collar, looked back at him. The anger in his face slowly morphed into mild surprise as he recognized the brunet. “Ren! You hurt?”

“No, actually I'm—”

“You bastard! Had the nerve to steal in my turf and now you knock Ren over too? You wanna die that badly?” Beni gave the man he was holding a rough shaking and then pulled back an arm for a punch.

Ren lunged forward in time to grab the redhead's wrist. “Beni, wait! I'm perfectly fine! A little rattled, but I don't have any injuries.”

“You sure?”

Ren nodded.

“That's great, but this bastard still has to answer for what he stole!”

“Stole?” Ren glanced at his hand and found that the strap he had held onto earlier was that of a woman's purse, which he had managed to yank from the thief during his fall.

“Beni-san!” Beni did not have the time to answer as another man in traditional Japanese attire ran up to them, all out of breath. Beni's right-hand man, Kou. “Ah, i-it's you, Re-Ren-san! H-how are y-you doing? A-Aoba-kun's here too!” Even with his difficulty breathing, Kou's face visibly brightened at the sight of Ren's AllMate. “Be-Beni-san and I we-were cha-chasing after a thi-thief a-and—”

“Already caught him, Kou.” Beni stood up. Although the thief was a good head bigger than him, the redhead easily manhandled him, holding one of the taller man's arms behind his back and making the latter yelp in pain. “He smashed into Ren here too.”

“ _E_? Are you alright, Ren-san?”

“Yes. And is this the item this man stole?” Ren held up the purse—purple, with several studs on the flap in front—in his hand. Kou grinned and nodded, then took it from him. “Thank you very much, Ren-san!”

“This guy was quick as hell.” Beni let out an exasperated breath. “Gave me a good run too.”

A couple more men, both also Beni's followers, arrived, and Beni handed over the thief to them. Kou took off along with them, giving Ren a small bow and Aoba a little wave before he left. The people around them who had stopped to watch the scuffle also began walking off, and in a few seconds, it was as if nothing had happened.

“I see Benishigure is doing well as always.” Ren was the first to talk. He had forgotten that the area he was in was the territory of Beni's Ribstiez team.

“Yeah. But there's been a lot of those fuckers lately that we've got our hands full. And are you sure you're okay?” Beni looked up at him in concern.

“I am really fine. I simply landed a little forcefully. The pain should be gone in a bit.” He shrugged the arm he landed on and rubbed it with the opposite hand. The odd prickling that circled his arm had started to ebb, but in its wake came something akin to the feeling of ice being pressed against his skin, and it spread across the same path as the prickling had, going around his bicep. His sense of touch in that area began to dull, but Ren did not allow any sign of discomfort show on his face.

The redhead clicked his tongue then punched his palm in frustration. “Sorry I had to get you tangled up in that. I swear when I see that little shit again I'm gonna give him a good beating.”

“Like I've said, that won't be necessary.” Beni had always been quite protective of him, even when they were children. Even when Ren eventually overshot him in height (with Beni at present reaching but a few centimeters above Ren's shoulder). Although Ren appreciated his efforts, he was very much aware of how quick Beni's temper was and how dangerous it was to underestimate the redhead simply because of his height. Troublemakers who made that mistake had to learn that fact courtesy of some broken noses and fingers. They should have known better—after all, Beni was the head of one of the most active Rib teams around.

“Hey, Ren, you should get some ointment and ice on that arm of yours,” Aoba interrupted, visibly worried. “If you don't, my sensors say the bruising's gonna start forming in half an hour.”

“What? Ugh! I knew it. Hey, show me that arm, Ren!” Beni grabbed the sleeve of his jacket, and Ren pulled back in a mild panic.

“I'm fine!” Ren was surprised at the rise in his voice, and the stupefied look on Beni's and Aoba's faces showed they were too. They gawked at each other silently for a few moments, before Ren cleared his throat and spoke: “I…I'm sorry. I don't know what…E-either way, I really am fine, Beni. Thank you for your concern.” He tried to muster his usual smile to support his words, but he ended up only with a rather shaken up version of it.

Beni hardly appeared convinced, but he placed his arms on his waist and said, “Fine, if you say so. But you better get that thing checked by Tae-san later.”

Ren nodded meekly.

“And why are you wearing a jacket in this weather? It's so damn humid it's like I'm burning in hell! You're not having any of those bad chills of yours again, are you?”

“No. I just came from Delivery Works so I am still a little cool. And Bonjin-san recently installed a new airconditioner, so I have been cold all day. I guess it's simply taking me some time to readjust to the heat outside.”

“Yeah, you've always had that weird temperature thing.” A beep came from the red coil Beni had around his wrist. He held it up and pressed a few buttons, bringing up a message screen. Clicking his tongue, he shut the display off before facing Ren. “Looks like I gotta go. Kou said some of the other guys ran into some trouble a couple of blocks away. Sorry.”

“It's all right.”

Beni spun on his heel and prepared to run but paused and glanced over his shoulder. “Make sure you to talk to Tae-san about that fall. And tell her I might pass by soon too. I miss her cooking.”

“I will.”

“See ya then.” With that, the redhead took off, swift as always. Ren watched until he rounded a corner and disappeared, and the dark-haired male then faced the other direction. “Let's go home, Aoba.”

He took a step forward but suddenly felt a chill run down his back. He turned around, amber eyes scanning the people around.

“Something wrong, Ren?” Aoba asked. Ren blinked a few times and then slowly shook his head.

“N-no. I just thought…I thought there was someone watching me…”

“ _E_? I don't see anyone though.”

“Ne…never mind. It must be my imagination. Let's go.” Even as he said that, however, Ren still lingered on gazing at the citizens walking about for a short while. It was an unusual sensation, but he could swear he felt eyes trained on his him earlier. After finding no one who particularly stood out, Ren walked off, pulling his jacket's zipper up and rubbing his elbows as he all of a sudden felt slightly colder, in the sweltering summer evening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *An _uwagi_ is the top worn for most Japanese martial arts (like judo or kendo). It looks like a short kimono :) (I'm using it here in an English context, since technically, the word itself just means any "upper garment" in Japanese.) 
> 
> aksasddasdasdddsfasdf I finished it OwO Well, the chapter's a little mundane in terms of events (like I said, I'm still partly basing from the original DMMd storyline—which is already a mishmash of the original game, Re:Connect, and the anime =w=), but I hope to pick things up quickly enough for the next chapters. I have been wanting to make a Protag!Ren AU for some time now, so here's my own take on it. xD


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay, chapter 2 /o/ Thank you to everyone who read the first chapter, and even more thanks to those who gave kudos, bookmarked, and commented. (ㅇㅅㅇ❀) I'm glad you liked it! Don't worry, all the canon boyfriends will be making their appearances in the story, but for the sake of suspense (?), I'll be keeping how exactly some of them would be appearing a secret for now. ((ΦωΦ)) You're gonna meet a couple of them in this chapter tho.
> 
> My schoolwork is threatening to consume me at the moment thanks to our impending finals week QwQ, so I humbly apologize if that affected this chapter in any way. 
> 
> Either way, please have this new chapter (ФДФ)

The way back home from Delivery Works for Ren meant passing through Aoyagi Street, the main street connecting all the four parts of the Old Resident District. With the night having fallen, the numerous shops that lined Aoyagi brightened the evening with their almost blinding neon signs and LED lights. A large number of the younger residents had also filled up the street, as they have often been wont to do, even when the policemen (who were “upholders of the law” only in name thanks to their shady dealings with the local yakuza) always threatened to arrest them for breaking the enforced curfew. Nobody could really blame them for being so fearless, though—following the rules had never guaranteed being spared from being beaten up anyway, if you were unlucky enough to catch any officer's eye. “Might as well” had become a mantra that most people learned to take up to cope.

“Are you sure you're okay?” Aoba kept his eyes trained up at his owner's face as the two of them walked down the bustling sidewalk.

Ren, arms crossed tightly over his chest, kept his gaze trained straight ahead, not sparing his AllMate even a glance, and retorted, “Why do you ask?”

“You know why. Your temperature's gotten lower since that run-in with that thief earlier. And I'm picking up weird readings from your arm. You can fool Beni but not me.”

The brunet paused in his walk, with Aoba following suit almost immediately, and turned to his companion, smiling. “I guess not. You are Aoba, after all.”

He indeed had gotten much colder after separating from Beni, even while other people sweated profusely in the humid evening air. He had earned plenty of curious stares on his way—a young man wearing a jacket fully zipped up, arms over his chest, and slightly shivering as if it were the first days of winter and not of summer.

The sensation he had lost in that part of his upper arm also had not returned yet. It was like he had a phantom limb—or more like a phantom limb part—except in reverse: it was there, but he could not feel it. The rest of his arm felt fine, however, but it was as if it were detached and he was moving it remotely. The bottom line was he could not wrap his mind it; it utterly baffled him.

“You lashed out at Beni earlier too,” Aoba added. “Does it hurt that bad?”

“No. Actually, it doesn't hurt at all.” Ren bent down to gently rub the top of the collie's head, and Aoba leaned into his touch and made a pleased sound.

“That's good. You made me worry earlier. I thought you didn't want Beni to touch you because you were in pain.”

The edge of Ren's brow twitched slightly at Aoba's comment. That was another thing. He never knew himself to be agitated so easily, and he could not come up with an explanation as to why he had acted so upset when Beni was only concerned for him.

At that moment though, when the redhead had reached out for him, an inexplicable urge to evade overpowered him—an urge to practically recede into himself, into anything that would keep him away from everyone and anyone. And that was what he had acted on.

“I am certain I will be fine once we reach home,” he told Aoba. “If not, I can always ask Tae-san to check it for me.”

That apparently was enough assurance for his AllMate, as its ears perked up and its tail began to move about energetically. “ _Un_! Let's get going then.”

“It has gotten rather late. Can you check which path would be the fastest to take?”

“Sure!” He paused for a moment. “They've got a construction in Block 18-A, and 269th Street is closed off for police inspection, so taking the route from 207th to 195th would be the fastest, if you don't mind going through the side streets tonight.”

“That will not be a problem,” Ren replied before resuming their walk.

Although most people avoided them, the isolated side streets and gloomy alleyways in the Old Resident District had never been a source of discomfort—much less fear—for Ren. If anything, they were more of a consolation. He was never at ease with the amount of hustle and bustle that occupied the main streets, Aoyagi in particular, and walking in relative solace was like a breather to him. Of course, there was the usual Ribstiez scuffle here and there, but he had long adjusted to that (much thanks to all the trouble he had gotten himself into when he was younger—all of which he would rather forget). The rise in popularity of Rhyme, though, and the rowdy crowd that adored it had made the side streets rather “livelier,” unfortunately. The conflicts erupting between Ribsters and Rhymers were only further fuel to the fire.

“Yo, _nii-san_!” Ren had rounded a corner when he found his path blocked off by two young men with boldly colored hair (one had a bright and electric blue, while the other, a shade of deep and mossy green). A pair of Ribsters, no doubt, considering the rather prominent team tattoos on their arms. Both were wearing mischievous smirks.

A low growl. Aoba had gotten into a defensive stance, his narrowed eyes trained on both males in front of them. Ren held out a hand to him, to signal him to stand back. With a steady tone, he said, “May I help you?”

One of the men, the one with the blue hair, snickered at his greeting. “Tha's pretty kind of ya, _nii-san_. Actually, yeah, ya can help us out.”

“We're kinda strapped for cash, y'see,” the other chimed in, stepping forward. Aoba moved forward too, baring his fangs as a warning. Ren, though, remained calm. “And we were thinkin' how nice that necklace of yours is.” The Ribster pointed at the small blue diamond-shaped pendant Ren wore around his neck. Even in the dimness of the street they were on, it gave off a faint sheen.

“Thank you. It's a precious memento,” Ren responded.

The guy with the blue hair spoke up again. “Really? Mus' be hella precious, then. Haven' seen anythin' like that 'round here. Ya won' mind if we take it, would'ya?”

“Actually, I would mind. Very much. It's quite important to me.”

The duo glanced at each other and laughed. “You're pretty gutsy there. What team are you on?”

“I am not part of any.”

“Wha? A No Mark, huh?”

“S'that why you're walking with that AllMate? Looks too much of a girl's pet to be a guard dog, ain't it?”

Aoba's growling got louder. “What'd you say?”

“Aoba,” Ren warned. He had no interest in fighting these two, but he also had no interest in handing his necklace over to them.

The one with the red hair cracked his knuckles and grabbed Ren by the collar of his jacket. Aoba made a move to leap at him, but his companion cut him off.

“Since you're a No Mark, you're fair game. We're from Bug Bomb, y'know. We could fuck you u—Ugf!”

A long lump of maroon fur suddenly landed on the redhead's face, making him step back and release Ren. Aoba, taking advantage of how the one with the blue hair had gotten distracted by the incident, lunged forward and sank his teeth into the man's leg, making him curse out in pain and kick him off in retaliation. “You piece of shit!” He raised his fist to strike the AllMate, but Aoba simply bared his fangs again to get him to fall back.

“Agh! Fuck! It's in my shirt! Get it off!” The lump of fur, quick as a heartbeat, slipped into the red-haired man's clothes, making him thrash around wildly and scream in the attempt to pull it off to no avail.

Ren watched in confusion at the scene in front of him, not managing to fully process what had happened. “You okay, Ren?” Aoba asked as he withdrew to his owner's side.

“Y-yes. B-but what just—?”

Finally, a small animal popped out of the hem of the Ribster's shirt. A weasel. It skittered away from its prey, past Ren and Aoba, and climbed up a person standing behind them.

“You'd be better off not bothering that guy. He might not look that much, but he's got a killer grip. Lone Wolf's Fist, I call it.” It was a man with long white hair, which was tied up in a ponytail that hung over one shoulder and dyed a dark gray at the ends. A spiked black collar was around his neck, and on his pale cheek, under his right eye, was a mint-green tattoo in the shape of a teardrop. With his hands slipped into the front pockets of his jacket—dark gray with a hood lined with white fur that blended easily into his hair—he stepped towards Ren and the Ribsters, the weasel standing quietly on his left shoulder. “Better back off while you still have both of your arms. Right, Ren?”

“Ah.” Ren's eyes widened in recognition. And so did those of the two men who had attacked him, although while Ren appeared only mildly surprised, their smug expressions had dissolved into ones of fear.

“Shit! It's Sickle Weasel!”

“Fuck, dude, if you're in Dry Juice, you should have said so!”

Both immediately took off in a run, with the one with the blue hair visibly limping from the bite Aoba had given him earlier.

“How disappointing,” the man with the white hair said, reaching up to rub the weasel's cheek. “You'd think they'd have more of a bite. And I was here getting all excited to fight with you again.”

“Itachi,” Ren muttered.

“Hey.” Itachi turned to him, smiling. Having such narrow eyes, the slightest upturn of his lips was enough to give the illusion that his eyes were closed. He stretched his left arm toward the other male, and the small animal on his shoulder moved swiftly over it, making a few squeaks, before leaping onto Ren's shoulder and winding itself around its neck.

“Mizuki too, I see.” Ren reached up to rub the top of its head with his finger, and the animal made a small sound at his touch.

“When he suddenly ran off, I knew the only thing he could have picked up was your scent. He's very attached to you, after all.”

“I see. I should thank him then. He saved us.”

Itachi reached into the pocket of his pants, held out his hand, and whistled. Mizuki perked up, then leapt from Ren's shoulder onto his master's proffered hand, grabbing the small piece of dried peach on his palm. He made his way up to Itachi's shoulder again and nibbled contentedly on his treat.

“You shouldn't underestimate this guy. He might be a Proto, but he can still do things AllMates can't. No offense to you, Aoba.”

“None taken. Like Ren said, the little guy came just in the nick of time.”

It was difficult to distinguish, thanks to how realistic the AllMates had become, but Itachi's pet was different from the robotic animal companions that had become a staple in Midorijima. Mizuki was one of the few remaining Protos, short for “prototype,” for they had been what the AllMates were based on: live animals with limited access to the virtual network because of the cybernetic modifications to and implants in their neural systems. Toue Co. had phased most of them out many years ago, after the AllMates were introduced and people found out how much more convenient artificial pets were compared to real ones. Itachi, however, had adamantly refused to part with the pet he loved, a sense of undying loyalty he also displayed when it came to Dry Juice, his Rib team and the biggest in Midorijima.

“And I don't think there's any need to thank me,” Itachi told him. “I'm sure you could have handled those guys on your own. I was actually thinking if I should have just stayed back and watched. After all, it's been a while since I've seen you in action.”

Ren sighed and furrowed his brows. “That was in the past, Itachi. I have since learned to control myself.”

“And I keep saying you're bound to run into guys like those when you go into these parts as a No Mark. Aoba's with you, and I'm sure you can stand your ground, but it'd definitely be much better if you join a team, especially nowadays. Comes with a lot of perks, you know.”

“I will not join Dry Juice, if that is what you are insinuating again. I have told you that plenty of times before, have I not?”

Itachi shrugged. “Can't hurt for me to keep trying, right?”

“Ren doesn't like getting into fights. That's just how he is,” Aoba interrupted. “Although that can be annoying at times.”

Itachi turned to the light blue AllMate, amused. “You've got your hands full with him, huh?”

Aoba groaned. “Tell me about it.”

“I'm very sorry,” Ren said remorsefully, bowing his head.

Itachi and Aoba stared at him for a while before breaking into laughter.

“You're too open, Ren. I can see why Aoba's always so worried about you.”

The blue collie gave his owner a nudge on his knee then grinned up at him. “I don't really mind watching over you. That's what I'm here for, right?”

Ren smiled at his AllMate, then focused on Itachi. “From how those two earlier reacted, it seems _Kamaitachi_ * is still a name that's quite feared.” The name was what Itachi had been popularly known as for as long as he can remember. Whether it was because of the Ribster's speed and skill in fighting (plenty of Ribsters feared how good he was with a knife) or the deftness of his hands in creating tattoos (practically painless, his customers would say), or even both, he was not entirely sure. “Dry Juice seems to be as strong as ever, too.”

He had expected the other male to grin and start talking energetically, as he had always done whenever the topic was about his team, but Itachi's mouth twitched before making a frown, and his gaze fell to the ground.

“Yeah, I don't know about that. I've been worrying about us.”

“Worrying?”

Itachi sighed and absentmindedly began to rub the top of Mizuki's head with his finger. “It's that… _game_. Rhyme. I don't understand why, but it's gotten so many addicted. We've had a number of members leave because they wanted to join a Rhyme team instead. Rib is no longer fun, they said.” His expression took on a hint of frustration. “What's so fun about a fight that's all in your head anyway? And what's the point of joining a team that thinks everything is only about _fun_?”

Ren kept silent, unable to come up with any words to say. He had known Itachi for a long time, but he had never seen him put on such a defeated expression. He was aware that the tattooist valued his Rib team almost at the same level as his life—Itachi had always made that a point—but Ren could not fathom just how someone could let such a thing so utterly consume them like this.

It was a sense of attachment that was just alien to him.

After a brief, awkward silence, Itachi spoke up again. “And as if that wasn't enough, there's those _kamikakushi_ incidents lately…”

“ _Kamikakushi_?” master and AllMate chorused.

“Those mysterious disappearances of Rib teams that have been happening left and right. Just last week, I heard a low-level group practically got wiped off the face of the earth.” He crossed his arms over his chest and knitted his brows together.

“Hey, that can't just happen, can it? A whole group gone just like that?” Aoba glanced at Ren, but the brunet could only give him a small shrug. He had not heard of anything about this _kamikakushi_ before, although he had heard talks about disappearances, just not specifically of Ribsters.

“That was what we thought at the beginning,” Itachi continued. “But too many Rib teams have disappeared for it to be just our imagination. There were those who come back though. But it's like they're…they're just _husks_. Won't talk, won't eat, won't even react to anything.” A long sigh. “There've been rumors that Morphine is behind it.”

“That is impossible.” A mutter from Ren. “Morphine has been gone for so many years, it is almost a myth in itself.”

“Well, there's a lot of things not making sense right now, so I won't put that above things. If it isn't Morphine, then I bet it's those Rhymers.”

“I highly doubt that would be possible. After all, aren't Rhymers only interested in playing Rhyme? I do not see a reason for them to focus their efforts on eliminating Rib teams.”

Itachi clicked his tongue. Mizuki, who had been quiet throughout the exchange, snuggled closer to his owner and rubbed his head against Itachi's temple affectionately.

“All that thinking isn't doing you any good,” said Aoba. “Even Mizuki's worried.”

His pet's gesture seemed to be just the comfort Itachi needed, and his troubled expression dissipated. He reached into his pocket again and pulled out another treat, which the weasel gratefully received once it was offered to him. “Yeah, I guess. It's hard to have any peace of mind with everything that's happening.”

The sound of running feet caught their attention, and a group of young men sped past them in a frenzy. “Hey, hey! It's here, right?”

“It better be! I paid good money for that shit!”

“Who do you think's up to play? Route 44 totally owned that last one!”

Ren and Aoba looked at the display with relative curiosity, while Itachi appeared visibly dismayed. “Rhymers,” he grumbled, hardly trying to disguise his displeasure. “Must be a battle happening nearby.”

He huffed, then faced Ren. “Anyway, I should get going. I promised Beni we'd have a couple of drinks at the shop tonight. You're free to come if you want. I heard Beni's got the hots for some girl again. It'd make for a great show to watch once he starts talking. Remember last time—Sachiko, right?”

The brunet shook his head. “I would rather not. I am sure you are aware that I am not good with alcohol. And Beni would probably not appreciate your making fun of him like that.”

“Hey, it's all good, and I can always whip up a mean orange juice for you anytime. Just let me know.” Itachi waved goodbye and walked off. Ren knew he had intended to end on a light note with that last statement, but the humor in his voice was absent.

A sudden roar of music and flash of bright lights startled him, and he and Aoba turned toward one end of the street, where a large crowd had begun to gather. He could see the men who had rushed past them just a short while ago and remembered that Itachi had pointed out that they were Rhymers. He had never seen a Rhyme battle before, he thought. Was it always so loud and flashy?

The amount of Rhymers who had come together (and who were still coming in from so many directions) filled up the entire street, meaning the path he was to take home had been rendered useless. He was about to go back to try and find another route when a particularly large group swarmed his way, making him and Aoba rush into a dead-end alley nearby to avoid getting trampled. They got off safe, but they had gotten trapped, with the excited Rhymers blocking their way out.

“Se-i! Se-i! Se-i!” The mob chanted, punctuating each repetition with a raise of their fists. They erupted into shouts and claps as a lithe form materialized above their heads—a person, whether female or male Ren could not tell from where he stood. The figure wore a flowing white robe, its long wide sleeves cut open at the shoulder and then cinched at the wrists. The front of the garment was buttoned down to the waist, and the rest of it billowed down past the floating figure's feet. There were black garments underneath, which covered the figure's limbs entirely and which had what appeared like human bones printed on them. The sight was, at the least, a paradox of sorts—Ren mused to himself that it was as if there was this beautiful angel with a body reduced to nothing but bones.

Ren focused his eyes on the figure's face and found it framed with straight black hair that reached down to its neck. A translucent white veil hid almost all the facial features from view, leaving only pale smiling lips.

He was entranced by the scene, but out of the blue, there again was the sensation that he was being watched from behind, and he spun around instantly, only to find nothing at his back but a dark graffitied wall.

The crowd's cheers getting louder brought his attention back to the figure in white. “I apologize for the wait, everyone,” it announced with a voice that bore a gentle tone but boomed around him, as if it was coming from a myriad of invisible amplifiers surrounding them. (The voice sounded male, he noted, albeit a little high in pitch.) “Rhyme will start now!”

Sei (which was what Ren assumed to be the figure's name, as the audience continued to chant it) held his hands in front of him, and a circular holographic screen appeared below each. At the same time, long holographic panels materialized behind him, their odd shapes giving the illusion of wings.

“ _Nee_ , that Sei…doesn't he resemble you a bit?”

Ren blinked and then realized that Aoba had spoken to him. “W-what?”

“I said that Sei kinda resembles you.”

They were not exactly in the best position to get a good glimpse at Sei's face, and the lights flashing everywhere were enough to fill his vision with spots, but nevertheless, Ren tried to narrow his eyes as he focused on Sei's veiled face, trying to distinguish the features underneath the cover.

He had just made out what he assumed to be Sei's eyes when Sei lifted his gaze, as if to meet Ren's, and at that moment, he felt his entire body freeze up, like a bitter mist had suddenly enveloped it, and his breathing slowed, like all the air had gotten caught in his lungs. A chill spread out rapidly from his chest to his limbs, as if his blood had turned to ice.

His vision swam, and darkness crept at its edges. He vaguely heard what he assumed was Aoba calling his name, but his hearing gradually began to get muffled too. He felt himself sway on his feet, before his eyelids began to flutter closed and he began to fall forward.

“Woah, careful there.” Ren found himself caught by a muscular arm around his waist. Although very much disoriented and drowsy from whatever had just happened, the sound of another person's voice jogged his mind back.

“Who…?” he slurred as he turned his head to his side to see who had saved him. A tan young man with a wildly unruly mane of dark hair and blue eyes met his gaze with a mischievous grin.

“ _Yaho_ , Ren.”

A second male entered Ren's gradually clearing field of vision, standing behind the first one but possessing the same tan skin and long dark hair, albeit his was largely more tamed and straight and tied up neatly. “Hello there, Ren-san. I don't think this would be the best place for you to be having a nap.”

“Welter…Hersha…” Ren shook his head to drive away his disorientation, holding his head in one hand, and straightened up. Welter withdrew the arm around the other male's waist and slipped his hands into the pockets of his fur-lined coat. Hersha, meanwhile, stepped forward to Welter's side, the latter towering a good head and a half over him.

“Ren!” A concerned Aoba immediately rushed to his owner. “You just suddenly…”

“Perhaps I'm just exhausted,” Ren said with a small smile. There was still a cloud of drowsiness looming over his head that he could not shake off and a trace of weakness in his limbs and a coldness in his fingers, but he could feel himself recovering, albeit very slowly.

“It's a good thing we came across you, then, Ren-san,” Hersha spoke. “Although it's honestly quite a surprise to see you watching a Rhyme battle.”

Welter grinned, exposing a pair of sharp incisors. “You finally got interested in playing too?”

Ren shook his head. “We were just on our way home, but all of these people gathered so quickly.”

The crowd nearby broke out into a chorus of excited screams again, and Ren discovered that the game had already commenced, with who he assumed to be the two participants standing in the middle of the crowd, just underneath Sei, as their fight was broadcasted on a holographic dome above.

“Are all Rhyme games like this?”

The smaller of the two other men nodded. “If you mean are all of them as chaotic as this, then yes, they are.”

“Which is why we're here,” Welter added. “These guys always get too carried away, and we have to make sure they don't go causing too much trouble.”

“So this place belongs under your group's jurisdiction as well?” asked Ren. He had known both men for quite a long time, though not as long as Itachi, and was very much aware of their jobs as members of one of the local yakuza groups, which were not as prominent as Rib and Rhyme teams but undeniably held much more influence—especially when one factored in the connections they had with the district's police force. The yakuza were not overtly known for instigating or participating in street brawls like Ribsters and Rhymers, but they continued to be quite protective when it came to matters of territory.

“You can say that.” Welter absent-mindedly scratched the tip of his nose.

“You twins sure have a huge area to cover,” Aoba said flatly, standing close to Ren's feet and narrowing his eyes at the two.

A combination of exasperated sounds erupted from the two: a hiss-like sigh from Hersha and a loud groan from Welter.

The smaller male raised a brow. “I believe we have made it clear before that we are not twins.”

“Yeah,” Welter added with a shrug. “If we were animals, we probably won't even be the same species.”

“You gotta admit you two look a lot alike though, right, Ren?”

“I apologize, but you two _do_ share plenty of similarities.” Ren had heard their insistence at not being twins so many times, but even then, he could not deny that it was easy to assume that they were. Hersha and Welter shared the same black hair and the same blue eyes and the same tanned skin. It did not help that their outfits were of the same colors as well, although Hersha dressed more sharply with his suits and leather, while Welter was more flamboyant with his furs and animal prints.

Hersha looked mildly disappointed at his easy agreement to Aoba's comment but only said, “Well, if it's Ren-san, then we can forgive you. We are your greatest fans, after all.”

Ren was about to ask what he meant when the deafening blare of police sirens filled his ears, making him clap his hands over them as a reflex.

“Hey, you fuckers!” boomed an angry voice that was all too familiar to everyone who lived in the Old Resident District. “What do you think you're doing?! All of you are under arrest!” Akushima, the head inspector of the local police, stood in front of a line of his armed men, brandishing his favorite megaphone as always.

“ _Che_ , the loudmouth's here,” Welter commented.

“So it seems. We better get going. See you, Ren-san. You better hurry along too.” Hersha gave him a quick smile before he and Welter dashed off, just as the crowd of Rhymers spread out in all directions in fear at the sight of Akushima—the man, after all, did not exactly have a reputation for being the kindest cop around.

“Ren, quick, this way!” Aoba sprinted out of the alley they were in and turned a sharp left, and his master took off after him almost instantly. As they ran, Ren tried to get a quick glimpse of the place where the Rhyme battle had just occurred, but he found nothing there. Sei and all the lights and sounds that accompanied him had vanished.

Their escape proved to be a bit difficult, with all the panicked Rhymers running around them in a frenzy, but Aoba managed to lead him into a narrow, empty alleyway, at the end of which he could make out a part of Aoyagi Street. The sounds of screams and sirens began to get farther and farther away as he neared the alleyway's exit, and he glanced back for but a second before training his eyes on the road ahead again.

And that was when he caught sight of the girl in blue.

He was quite certain he did not see her standing on the other side of the road just a few moments ago. But there she was, long light blue hair held up in ponytails that faded to white at the tips and a large deep blue mantle covering her from her shoulders to her knees. She had her eyes closed at first, but her eyelids fluttered open slowly, revealing irises of a pale yellow hue. A small glint—a jewel?—appeared on the space between her thin eyebrows.

She locked gazes with Ren, and a smile appeared on her lips, before she opened them as if to say something, but he could not hear what…

“Ren!”

Hearing his name called out was like having himself roughly yanked back. A bright flash came from his right, and as Ren's mind gradually began to process his surroundings again, he looked to his side and saw a bright circle of light swiftly coming nearer.

He was yanked back, and this time literally. A motorcycle zipped past, missing his foot by just a hair's breadth, and he fell backward, landing on something that was not exactly the hard pavement he expected to slam against.

“ _Oi_! Do you want to die?!”

His thoughts still in a daze, Ren craned his neck upward and found Beni staring down at him with a horrified expression. What had just happened slowly dawned on the brunet, and he sat straight up (having fallen against Beni and landing with his head on the latter's lap). The abrupt movement sent his head reeling, and he immediately buried his face in his hands to cope with the onslaught of dizziness.

“Are you hurt?!” That was Aoba, and hearing the almost hysterical AllMate say his name made Ren realize that he was the one who had called out to him earlier. “You didn't get hit, did you?!”

“N-no, I-I'm fine…I-I think,” he managed to get out with a shaking voice. Tentatively, he withdrew his hands from his face, and his eyesight went into a blur before clearing up after a couple of blinks. Aoba's face immediately entered his field of vision, the collie's features distorted by a mix of panic, fear, and worry. Ren wanted to console him with a smile, but he was too overwhelmed, and his body was going haywire: he could not feel his legs, and the remaining parts of his body that he could feel were bone-chillingly cold.

“ _Oi_ , bastard! What the hell did you think you were doing?!” Beni had leapt up onto his feet and was furiously glaring at the motorcycle that had almost run his friend over, which had stopped just a couple of meters away. The rider simply gave the redhead an uninterested stare. It was a man, with hair that was a mix of pink and white and olive brown skin. A black eyepatch covered his left eye, and a lit cigarette was placed between his lips.

Beni's shouting did not appear to bother him in the least, and instead, the pink-haired rider focused on the young man still sitting bewildered on the ground. Ren caught the stare of one dark eye, and he shuddered at the intensity of it. Why was he being scrutinized so thoroughly?

“Are you _listening_ to me?!”

The rise in Beni's voice instantly caught Ren's attention, and when Ren turned to the Ribster, the latter was already reaching for one of the pair of _wakizashi*_ * attached to his waist. Remembering that Akushima and his men were still possibly nearby, and seeing all the stares they were getting from passersby, Ren shot up and grabbed Beni's arm to stop him. (However, his legs apparently were not in his full control yet, and Ren ended up stumbling onto his knees and holding onto Beni for support as much as for stopping him.)

“Beni, it was my fault,” he said, fully expecting the disbelieving look that his friend threw his way.

“Did you hit your head?! Even for you, there should be a limit to being so—”

“I misjudged my steps. I had been distracted.” Using Beni's arm as support, he pulled himself up, focusing all the energy he could muster at that moment on getting his legs to move. They reluctantly obeyed, enough for him to prop himself up, although his lower half trembled visibly.

He bowed in the direction of the rider (gripping Beni's shoulder with one hand to make sure he did not lose his already rocky balance). “I apologize for the trouble. I will be more careful next time.”

There was no reply. He thought he heard something akin to a short hum, followed by the roar of an engine. When Ren raised his head, all he was met with was the biker's receding back as he drove off.

 “ _Che_ , just because he's the head of Scratch, he's so full of himself,” Beni grumbled, removing his hand from his sword's hilt and readjusting the bandages his arms were wrapped in. They had gotten lose, probably from having Ren fall on him earlier.

Ren breathed out in relief. The trembling in his knees was slowly subsiding, and he could handle standing on his own enough to withdraw his hand from Beni's shoulder. “There was no need to challenge him like that…And is he someone you know? You said he's the head of…Scratch, was it? Is it a Ribstiez team?”

The redhead pulled at one end of the bandages around his arm, tightening them. “Yeah. Not really all too familiar with him. He's called Tori, and his Rib team's settled somewhere in the North district. Guys say they're all ex-cons, so definitely not the best people to have around.” He clicked his tongue, and for a second, Ren thought he had finally calmed down, but he found himself at the receiving end of an annoyed glare. “ _Anyway_ , as for _you_ , how many more times do you plan to get in trouble today? Running onto the road like that, you gave me a heart attack!”

“I-I apologize…”

“That was a close call.” Ren spun on his heel and saw a small red bird fluttering a few inches above Aoba's head. “You're lucky Beni and Aoba were able to grab you in time.” Koujaku, Beni's strawberry finch AllMate, flew over to his owner and settled on his shoulder, nipping once at the patterns of blue leaves that decorated his wings and then puffing out his red chest.

Ren bowed his head in guilt. “I apologize, again. It appears I'm not in my best condition today. Why…are you here though? I thought you are supposed to meet Itachi.”

“I am. But Itachi sent me a mail earlier saying he bumped into you and Rhymers were starting to gather when he left. And then I saw that fucker Akushima and I realized he was probably heading for the Rhyme battle. You weren't answering your coil, so I got worried.”

“I do not remember receiving any calls.” Ren lifted his coil up and opened the logs, and he then stared at amazement at the long list of missed calls that were labeled with Beni's name. “That's…I am certain I did not hear my coil ringing earlier.”

He looked at Aoba in confusion, and the collie AllMate responded with the same amount of bewilderment. “I do not remember detecting them coming in earlier either,” he said. “Might be because we were already running from Akushima? Ah, but before that…Ren, I think we should go home now. I'm detecting that your temperature's dropped significantly. You look pretty pale too.”

“What? Agh! I knew there was something wrong with you a while ago. Come here!” Beni grabbed one of Ren's arms and swung it over his shoulder, before slipping his own arm around the taller male's waist.

Ren blinked, not certain what to make of his friend's actions. “Beni, what are you…?”

“I'm taking you home.”

“Yes, but I think I can walk home on my own. And Itachi…”

“I'll send him a message. And don't think I'm letting you off again. Who knows what you'd get yourself into next!”

“But—”

“If this is because you think I'm too small to carry you, I swear I'll punch your face in.” Beni glared at him, although his words did not seem to bear any solid threat. “Don't get too cocky just because you shot up ahead of me. I can still piggyback you like before. I'm just doing this to save your face.”

The explanation stunned Ren for a few seconds, before his expression dissolved into a small smile. “I guess there would not be any harm done.”

“Damn straight,” Beni said proudly before starting to walk.

Ren's legs tingled with pins and needles, but at the very least, he could put one foot in front of the other in a semblance of a walking pace. He threw a glance over his shoulder to check on Aoba, who followed the two of them just a few inches away from his feet.

The image of the girl in blue then flashed through his mind, and Ren's eyes automatically sought the spot where he had seen her standing earlier, only to find no one there.

“Something wrong, Ren?” Aoba asked after catching his master staring intently behind him.

Ren shook his head. “I-it's nothing.” He focused back on the path ahead, but the budding unease stayed in his chest. There was a familiarity to those yellow eyes that he could not explain, and neither could he explain how looking at them made him feel as if he was being urged to return.

But to where?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * _Kamaitachi_ literally means sickle ( _kama_ ) + weasel ( _itachi_ ). It's a _yokai_ of Japanese folklore, a weasel (or three, depends on the version), who has sickles for claws/hands and who can cut someone without them feeling it.
> 
> ** A _wakizashi_ is a short, generally one-handed Japanese sword. If you're familiar with _Rurouni Kenshin_ , think of Aoshi's swords (although they're technically _kodachi_ ), albeit a bit shorter. :3
> 
> Sajdfhkasdf I'm sorry this had taken some time. A lot of things happened, foremost of which is me losing some of my notes for the fic and having to recompile them to comprehensible things from the random notes I've put on scratch paper =u=;; I'm also replaying the game/s and rewatching the anime to check if I'm still on track, and I guess that also adds to the delay in updates (；≧∇≦) =3 Either way, like I said, have some of the canon bfs (i.e., Mizuki and Koujaku—yes I count Mizuki for Re:code xD). ~~There's little Hippojack here, but expect more of him soon o3o. I think I got a bit too fond of Beni though.~~
> 
> And in case I hadn't managed to make it clear, Itachi is based on the “AllMate” the anime gave Mizuki :3 Since there wasn't much to go on with him with regards to personality, I mixed him up with Mizuki's personality and a bit of an OC. 
> 
> ~~Also, the trash AllMates, but do we need to talk about the trash AllMates?~~
> 
> Thank you for reading, and I hope you liked this chapter. (^・ω・^ )


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Ren finds out that rabbits are no longer the prey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A HUGE thank you again to those who commented and gave kudos for this fic! QuQ And thank you for all the hits too! You are all awesome, and I am very sorry for the time it takes for me to update ｡ﾟ( ﾟஇ‸இﾟ)ﾟ｡
> 
> Anyway, please (hopefully) enjoy this chapter (シ_ _)シ

Ren took a deep breath as he laid his hand on his home's front door. A quick glance at his coil confirmed for him that he had gotten home very late—about an hour before midnight—and it was all thanks to watching that drama marathon with Clara and the run-in with the Rhymers and Akushima, not to mention the amount of time he had to spend to convince Beni that he would be fine on his own. (Beni had insisted on escorting him the entire way, but by some miracle, Ren had managed to persuade the overly worried redhead that he would not be running into any further potential motorcycle accidents or Rhyme raids on the way home.)

“Do you think _baa-chan'_ s still awake?” Aoba asked as Ren slid the door open and stepped into the dimness of the entryway.

Ren pressed his hands against the wall to his right and inched forward, feeling around for the light switch. “I personally would prefer that she not be. If she was—”

There was a soft click, and everything was lit up by a bright light. The one who flipped the switch, however, was not Ren.

“If I was, then what?” said a loud, disgruntled voice. Ren swallowed, recognizing the voice's owner, who was standing just a short distance away and staring at him with a disapproving expression and arms crossed over her chest.

“Ta-Tae-san…I-I'm home.”

Tae did not answer and simply narrowed her eyes at the young man, who was pinned to the spot on which he stood. Some awkward moments of silence passed before Tae spoke again, Ren flinching as she did so: “So you almost got caught by that Akushima again?”

Ren blinked. “How did you…?”

“Beni called a while ago.”

Ren's guilt at having his grandmother find out what had happened to him gave way to mild surprise. “‘Called’? Do you mean you used your coil?” He had known Tae to be quite averse to using the wristwatch-type coils, even if she did own an old model he had only seen once or twice. She had a type of distrust for them that struck Ren as a little different from the usual incompatibility older people had with newer pieces of technology, but he had never bothered to question her about it.

“Of course not! We talked on the phone.” She cocked her head toward a bulky rose-colored telephone sitting on a nearby cabinet. He had gotten it from Heibon just a couple of weeks before, at her request. “If you think that is going to make me forget about you running into Akushima again—”

The brunet stiffly bowed from the waist, arms clipped to his sides, before she could continue. “I apologize, Tae-san. I honestly did not intend for that to happen. There was a Rhyme battle, and I got caught in the crowd.” He paused. “I am really sorry if I worried you.”

He was well aware of why his grandmother's already quick temper flared up even more whenever it came to him getting into trouble. Although it had happened almost a decade ago, Ren surmised seeing your grandson go home covered in bruises from street fights almost every day would not be the most assuring of memories. And while he himself hardly remembered all the specifics of what happened back then—Why _did_ he get into all those fights? “Troubled teenage years” hardly fit the bill for an explanation—it most probably was on a largely different level for her.

Another brief silence passed, and Tae gave a sigh, the tension in her shoulders dissipating. She did not say anything further about the matter and simply turned on her heel, huffing and muttering, “Dinner's ready,” and then walking off. (Ren thought he heard her murmuring “stupid grandson” as she did so.)

Ren breathed in relief. He and Aoba—who had kept silent earlier, being fully aware of how it was like to meet Tae in such a mood—followed after the older woman into the room that served as their kitchen and dining room. Plates, chopsticks, and bowls of rice for two were already neatly laid out on the table, with _soumen_ , sliced steamed fish, and a pot of miso soup that had gone rather cold sitting nearby.

“Do you want me to reheat the food?” Tae asked, already reaching for the soup pot.

Ren shook his head. “It is fine for me like this. I'm sorry to have kept you waiting.”

“You can stop apologizing and start eating, then.”

Both settled down on their seats, and Aoba curled up at Ren's feet and put himself into sleep mode. After taking a few seconds to clap his hands together and say “Itadakimasu” with his grandmother, Ren took a few small slices of the fish and placed them on his plate.

“That's all you're getting, Ren?”

He turned to Tae. “Yes.”

“And that's enough? Not much of an appetite?” She narrowed her eyes, and Ren knew she was scrutinizing him with the trained gaze of a seasoned doctor. She, after all, was a licensed practitioner, and a very excellent one at that, despite having been retired for some years. Most of the people in their area preferred her over the younger doctors, who often demanded ridiculously high fees. “Did you have chills again?”

He had wanted to say he was okay, since he felt as if his body was starting to warm up again, but he realized he was still wearing his jacket, and surely, his grandmother had taken it as a sign. “Just a little. Bonjin-san had installed a new airconditioning unit, so it was colder than usual at work, but I think I'll be fine.”   

Tae did not appear like she was fully convinced by his explanation, but nevertheless, she took her eyes off him and started putting food on her plate too. “Don't forget to take your medicine after you finish. And go and take a warm bath before going to sleep.”

Ren nodded obediently. “I will.”

 

* * *

 

Like Tae had told him, Ren took some of the pills his grandmother made herself and went to take a quick warm bath after helping her clean up the dishes. The water indeed helped his body heat up, and when he went up the stairs to his room, his body temperature had stabilized enough for him to bear wearing just a light cotton shirt and loose pants.

However, he now had something else to worry about.

Ren tossed the towel he was drying his hair with onto his bed and went straight for a square mirror hanging on the wall on one side of his room. He pulled one of his shirt sleeves up to his shoulder and frowned as he stared at his reflection.

“Something wrong, Ren?” Aoba padded softly into the room and then jumped onto the bed.

“Did they get darker?” The brunet's brows knit together as he stared at a bluish gray band that circled around his bicep, standing out easily against the paleness of his skin. He pulled up his other sleeve to reveal a similar mark on his right arm, although it seemed darker than the first.

His AllMate's ears twitched with curiosity. “You mean your birthmarks?”

Birthmarks. At least that was what he had been told. They had been light grayish skin at first, and he had been very uncomfortable as a child with the way they looked on him, but he had eventually learned to ignore them as he grew older.

That is, until he had seen his arms in the bath earlier.  

Ren inhaled deeply and tugged both sleeves down. “It couldn't be possible. Am I hallucinating?” 

He walked over to the bed and sat down beside Aoba, a troubled expression on his face.

Aoba tilted his head to the side. “Is it that bad? Should we tell _baa-chan_? Although I don't detect any notable abnormalities…”

“Tae-san's already asleep. I have made her wait until this late, so I don't want to impose on her any further. And anyway, aside from the change in color, I do not feel anything unusual. Perhaps it's because of my fall?” The run-in with the thief and Beni earlier crossed his mind, along with Aoba's concern that the bruising was going to start quickly. Maybe it was because of the bruising, he told himself. He must have not felt it because of the numbness from earlier…

His eyes widened as he remembered the odd sensation that had spread around his arm before. It had been around the area of one of his birthmarks, now that he thought about it. He pulled his right sleeve up again and gently prodded the band with his finger. Much to his relief, the numbness was gone, although looking at his arm again convinced him even more that the weird feeling had been around that area.

“Something wrong, Ren?”

He swallowed, hearing Aoba's question, then put his sleeve back down. “It's nothing. I was just thinking.”

“ _A_ , by the way, it's late, but what do you want me to do with the file you downloaded this morning?”

“Downloaded?” He raised a brow and then recalled the scuffle with the three children back in Heibon and the odd message that had “Merciful Goddess” as the sender's name. “Ah, that. It does not have contain any bugs or malware, does it?”

“I gave it a quick scan, and it looks okay to me. Want me to open it?”

“Please.” Ren pressed a button on his coil and brought up the home screen. Another square-shaped screen appeared, but it showed nothing but black.

Aoba shifted closer to him in order to get a good view of the screen, and Ren tilted his wrist a little to let his AllMate see it. “From what the data tells me, it's one of those retro-type games. The ones where you control a main character and defeat monsters and raise levels. An RPG.”

“I see. Oh, something's appeared.”

The both of them went quiet as a small sprite showed up at the center of the screen. Ren could only assume it was female, since the graphics were blocky and highly pixelated. He could make out long blonde hair, a crown of sorts, a white robe, and a pair of wings.

Words in white appeared below the woman, letter by letter, accompanied by a series of beeps. _Please…save me. Please…help me. Only you can…_

Everything faded back to black and then changed into the title screen. The words “Silent Oath” were displayed in stylized letters, a big white cross in between them and the game options underneath. A simple electronic tune played softly in the background.

“‘Silent Oath’? I've never heard of this game before. Is this a beta version?” Ren asked as he glanced at Aoba.

“It doesn't say anything. The file size is pretty small though, so maybe it is?”

Ren turned back to the game screen and then chose “Start.” The display changed to a castle in the middle of a vast grassland. A character sprite, almost as large as the castle itself and dressed in dark blue, stood beside it.

“Aoba, is this my character?”

“Yeah. There aren't any options for name changes like in other games, though. The data file just says ‘Hero.’ But he doesn't look much of one, huh?”

The sprite did not seem to be holding any weapon or wearing any armor, just a blue shirt (or a tunic or robe, Ren could not really be sure) and a cap. The brunet put a finger on his coil, planning to test the controls, but the character moved before he could punch a command, walking downward and far from the castle to a clearing surrounded by a clump trees on one side and a long line of rocky mountains on the other.

He turned to Aoba. “Are you controlling it?”

The blue AllMate shook his head. “I'm not doing anything.”

A bit confused, both just focused again on the screen and watched as the hero walked to the center of the clearing, to a dark square that was apparently an entrance. It led to some type of underground dungeon, all red bricks and gray concrete, and the hero navigated it with ease, despite the mazelike layout of the place, and quickly found the exit. He emerged on the other side of the line of the mountains and kept going down, past even more clumps of trees and mountains. He reached a sandy area, and it took a second for Ren to realize that it was a beach, the sea forming a mass of blue on the bottom part of the screen. The hero stopped, and the screen went dark, with the words “To be continued…” briefly appearing.

Ren blinked, having not expected that the game would end so soon. “It's over? But nothing happened.”

“The game's size was pretty small to begin with. It could be a demo.”

“It probably is. I do not think I've come across a game demo sent through coil before, though. And with Rhyme being so popular, I didn't think anyone would try to create new games.” He stood up and switched off the lights. “Anyway, I'm thankful it wasn't a worm.”

The collie shifted on the bed as Ren returned, moving closer to the headboard and curling up by the pillow. His owner slid under the covers and lay down, facing the AllMate.

“Do you still feel cold?” Aoba pointed his nose at the blanket his owner had over him.

Ren gave a small shake of his head. “I am simply not comfortable without it. I guess it's a force of habit. Good night, Aoba.”

“Night, Ren.” Aoba closed his eyes and went into sleep mode. Ren gave him one last touch on the head and then closed his eyes as well, taking in a deep breath and then pulling the blanket up to his chin.

 

* * *

 

The next morning, Bonjin came back from his usual errands with a large shipment, and Ren had to help him unload his truck alongside Bonjin's AllMate, Haga-kun, an old humanoid-type model but one that was certainly dependable when it came to moving the heavier things in the shop.

“Where do you want me to put this, Bonjin-san?” Ren peered over the two cardboard boxes he had in his hands to find his employer, who lifted his gaze from the computer he was using and gestured to the back of the shop.

“Ah, please put it over there.”

Ren nodded and made his way to where Bonjin had pointed, careful not to bump or trip over any of the displays and shelves. With a huff, he gingerly settled the boxes down on the floor and took a deep breath as he straightened up. “These are the last ones from your truck.”

“Thank you, Ren-kun. Sorry for making you carry all those.”

“It's all right. Haga-kun was the one who carried the heavier ones, after all. Do you need me to do anything else?”

“Actually, there is one thing.” Bonjin reached for a pile of papers and folders on the desk and pulled out a sheet in the middle. “I received an order last night. For special delivery. I don't think the address is part of the places that Delivery Works sends packages to. I was thinking of going there myself, but I just got mail that a contractor's coming in today. I'm going to need to stay here to handle the paperwork when they arrive.” He let out a sigh. “Do you mind taking care of the delivery, Ren-kun? It's not too big of a package, and the address is just within the East District.”

Ren shook his head. “I do not mind at all.” He reached for the piece of paper and read the address printed. It was not too far from Heibon; if he took the alleyways, getting there would be fast.

“Well then,” Bonjin pulled a nearby drawer and gave him a box-shaped package neatly wrapped in brown paper, “here's their order. It's an old processor unit. I'm surprised someone is still interested in buying something like this.”

Bonjin gave the brunet a couple more reminders, and after getting Aoba, whom he had left in sleep mode in the shop's basement, Ren took his leave.

“So it's a special delivery this time?” Aoba asked as the two of them walked down a mostly empty street. It was just a couple of hours past noon, and with the sun so high up in the sky, there were very few people who dared go out and about in the sweltering heat.  

“Yes. Did you manage to find a good route to take?”

“Yeah. The side streets really are the best way to go. We can go into 142nd just up ahead.”

“I see. Thank you.”

“ _A_! I knew it! Ren-san!” A familiar voice made Ren stop, and when he turned around, he spotted Kou waving at them a short distance away. Some Benishigure members were with him. This place was part of their territory, he realized, and the red and bluish gray tag art he spotted painted on nearby walls confirmed it.

Kou flashed a big grin as he approached them. “Are you on an errand, Ren-san?”

Ren nodded in response. “I was sent on a delivery. Are you doing your rounds as well?”

“Yeah. Beni-san is too, although he's in charge of another block today. He's pretty pumped, after catching that guy yesterday.”

A small smile appeared on Ren's lips. Although Benishigure was one of the more popular Ribstiez teams, it was not formed with the intention to be a Rib team in the first place. Its creation was coincidental, with most of its original members having “joined” largely thanks to Beni's charisma (if Ren could call it that)—although not as physically imposing as most of his followers, the combination of the redhead's fiery attitude and eager helpfulness when it came to other residents had swiftly gained him a reputation, his skill in fighting itself notwithstanding. In fact, more than getting into turf scuffles as with other Rib teams, Beni's team was known more as a sort of volunteer group, doing jobs as random as catching thieves or helping out in arranging street stalls. Although, just like with their leader, that is not to say they could not hold their own when it came to a fight.

“That's new. You're not wearing your jacket, Ren-san?” Kou asked, staring at the other male's dark blue shirt.

The comment made Ren glance down at his shirt too. “Ah, the heat was starting to get to me too, so I left my jacket at home. It _is_ summer after all,” he answered. Tae had actually given him a slightly larger dosage of his medication that morning, after Ren told her about how the birthmarks on his arm had gotten darker. (He had to keep a lot of the details from her, however—bumping into the thief Beni was chasing and almost getting run over by a motorcycle, especially. He did not want to make her worry even further.) The new dose was working very well so far—despite the cool air in Heibon, he had not shivered or felt sleepy even once.

“Really? You still look kind of cool and fresh, though. Unlike me. I've been sweating buckets since I got out the house this morning.” Kou laughed, rubbing the back of his head.

“Well, I've never been the type to—”

A startled scream made Ren stop, and he, Kou, and Aoba turned their heads toward the source to find a couple of girls clinging to each other and staring, horrified, at a man sprawled at their feet, his eyes dazed and one arm reaching out weakly for the ankle of one of the girls. The man seemed to be whispering something, and when he moved, the girls screamed again in fright.

“It's one of those guys again,” Kou said, his earlier cheerful expression turning sour. “I'm sorry, Ren-san. We'll need to take care of this. I'll let Beni-san know we ran into you.” He gave a curt bow toward Ren and then a quick pat on the head to Aoba and signaled to the guys who were with him. They all went toward the girls and the whispering man, the former obviously relieved that they were there to help.

Ren watched as a couple of the Benishigure members lifted the man by his arms. He was like a limp doll in their hands, his head lolling over his shoulders as if he had no strength in his neck, or in any other part of his body for that matter. He continued to whisper, although it sounded more like gibberish than anything comprehensible.

“ _Kamikakushi_ , huh?” Aoba looked up at his owner.

Ren shrugged. He had caught a glimpse of some sort of tag art on the man's nape, but Kou and the other Benishigure members had started to crowd around him, so he could not see it clearly.

Taking a breath, Ren turned about. His conversation with Itachi about the Ribster disappearances yesterday lingered at the back of his mind. “We should get going.”

“ _Un_.”

He and Aoba went into one of the alleyways that led into the less-used streets. The tall buildings that lined each side and the thick bunches of cables hanging above like a pit of tangled snakes hardly allowed any sunlight to pass through, and so, even if it was almost the middle of the day, everything was dim and humid. The smell was also not exactly the most pleasant, as there were mostly just abandoned stores and warehouses around that area of the district. No people were in sight, not even the occasional Ribster, and his and Aoba's voices echoed off the walls as they chatted.

“You're pretty glad Delivery Works doesn't cover the address, right? You don't have to see Clara- _chan_ again so soon.” The taunting was obvious in Aoba's voice, and Ren guessed he must have still been harboring some irritation for yesterday for Ren choosing to stay and chat with Clara rather than leave when Aoba had said so.

“I admit there is that. Clara has a very strong personality, after all.”

“‘Strong personality’? It's not her personality that's strong. When she put all those clips and ties on me, I thought she was going to yank all my fur off!” The AllMate huffed in frustration, his eyes narrowing.

Ren smiled. He was about to respond, but instead, he stopped walking and went rigid, his lips pursed into a straight line.

Aoba was quick to notice and tilted his head as he turned to him. “Something wrong?”

The brunet glanced over his shoulder. He had felt as if he was being watched, again. But there was nobody nearby, and he was certain that if there a person around, he should have been able to hear some footsteps aside from his and Aoba's. Was it his imagination?

“Ren!”

“Wh—”

A bright flash, and then his eyes were assaulted with a myriad of lights. He stepped back, but instead of his foot pressing against the solid street, it passed through, and he fell backward, as if into an abyss. A shock ran through him, instantly followed by a biting cold that spread out to the tips of his fingers and toes.

The sensations lasted for what felt like hours, and when they ended, it was as if he had been doused with water.

The rundown buildings, the mess of cables, and the street they were walking on had all disappeared, and in its place was a vast space that had no visible end. He could not identify a floor or ceiling, but thankfully, he was not free-falling but just floating about weightlessly. He spotted some dark blocks approaching him, and when one was close enough, he placed his foot on it and found that it was a good place for him to stand on.

“Ren! You okay?” Something materialized beside him, cloaked in a blue light. When the light vanished, Ren found himself staring at a young man with messy blue hair. He was wearing a rather bulky black jacket that reached down to just above his navel, with straps and metal clasps on the front and a large hood that merged with a high collar that had small round speakers embedded in it. He also had loose black pants that were the same color as his jacket and a pair of combat boots. On his face was a large mask that covered everything from his nose downward, even his neck.*

Ren's eyes widened. “Aoba?”

The blue-haired male nodded, his eyes closing and their edges curving upward. (Ren assumed he was grinning under the mask.) “AllMates show up in their online mode here.” His voice was a little different, slightly more garbled and robotic, although Aoba's cheery tone remained. His voice also sounded like it was coming more from the speakers on his collar than where his mouth would be.

“Online mode? Here? Do you mean…Are we in Rhyme?”

Aoba nodded again.

“But there were no Rhymers around, and I did not see Sei either. We did not fall down somewhere while we were walking, did we?”

“No. My system says we're still in the same location, physically at least. Though we got sucked into a Rhyme field for some reason.”

A tremor coursed through the Rhyme field, and Ren barely managed to remain standing on the block he was on. The field began to change, all the colors and lights swirling around so fast that Ren felt he was going to faint. Large green rabbit-like shapes began to fill up the space, transforming it into something like a child's playground.

“Ren, something's coming!” Aoba had focused his gaze on something above, and so Ren followed his line of sight and saw a figure descend from out of nowhere before stopping some meters away in front of them. A person, with a navy blue and green hooded jacket and a cartoonish white rabbit mask on their face.

“NiCe To MeEt YoU, _nIi-ChAn_. _Pi!_ ” they said in a distorted high-pitched voice. “CoMe PlAy A fUn GaMe WiTh Me, WoN't YoU? _Pi!_ ”

Ren swallowed. “Is he another player? Has the battle begun?”

His AllMate got in front of him, stretching one arm to the side as a shield. “Be careful!”

The one in the rabbit mask tossed something upward—a small cube. It glowed green and changed into a figure with a human body in a white lab coat but with a head that was an oversized rabbit's, green and with dark mismatched eyes and the tongue poking out. Several other cubes appeared, and with a pop, they all changed into white rabbits with red boxing gloves on their hands.

Ren did not know what to do. He had never played Rhyme before. He wanted to call out to the other player to explain that it was an accident for him to be here, but the AllMate with the green rabbit head raised its hand and said, in a low voice that was as distorted as its master's, “ _BoU_ sEt.”**

The white rabbits with the red gloves gave out a collective cry—“Roger!”—and then charged like cannonballs at Ren and Aoba. The brunet narrowly managed to escape being hit by one by leaping off the block. He had expected that the weightlessness within the field would make it hard for him to move about, but he was somehow able to dodge as more of the white rabbits came. Aoba was doing the same, somersaulting and leaping about with precision like a trained gymnast.

When the last of the rabbits zoomed past, Aoba glided back to his owner. “You alright? Those little bastards were fast.”

Ren nodded and then spoke to the masked Rhymer: “There's been a mistake! I'm not your opponent. If you could let us log out of the field—”

“We can't.”

Ren gave Aoba a confused stare. “What?”

“The logout option's been disabled. The safety limits have been overwritten and removed too, so the pain inflicted here is no longer limited to just being in your head. It might end up affecting your physical body too, if we're not careful.”

“That's…How is that—”

“RhYmE nAmE, dUsK bLuE. _Pi!_ ” The other player's words brought Ren's attention back to them. “SeRaGaKi ReN- _nIi-ChAn_. _Pi!_ ”

Ren took in a deep breath. How could this person know his name? And what had they said before that? Rhyme name?

“PlAy WiTh Me, _NiI-cHaN_! _Pi_!”

“Play?”

“PlAy WiTh Me. _Pi!_ ”

To his horror, the white rabbits regrouped behind the masked player and charged again, and caught off-guard, Ren was unable to avoid one. It crashed into his stomach, sending him flying back. Aoba yelled out his name and attempted to go to him, but he was blocked by a number of the rabbits that were rushing him as well.

Ren coughed from the pain of being hit and then shivered uncontrollably. He wrapped his arms around himself in the effort to keep himself warm, but the action had no effect. It was as if something from the field was seeping into him—or rather, it was as if his body was _absorbing_ something, something unbearably heavy and suffocating, and the longer he stayed in it, the colder he became. His fingers were already stiffening, and his vision had begun to blur as well.

The rabbits stopped once more and flew back to their master, and Aoba grabbed the chance to head to Ren's side. “Ren!”

“Ao…” His heartbeat…He could hear his heartbeat resounding in his ears. A soft, slow thumping that was getting even slower.

“Look out!” Aoba suddenly jumped in front of him, and he saw that the AllMate with the green head had leapt at them, its fist pulled back for a punch. The AllMate did not have the red boxing gloves like the others, and on its hands instead were a couple of spiked brass knuckles.

Aoba received the full brunt of the rabbit-headed AllMate's assault, and he was pushed back by its sheer force and crashed into Ren with a pained groan. “ _Keh_ , so the big one can fight too, huh?”

“Aoba—!”

 _Pathetic_.

“Ugh!” Ren recoiled. It was like something had singed him from within. Against the backdrop of chills coursing through him, the heat instantly stood out. He could not pinpoint where it was coming from, only that it was inside him, and it was growing rapidly.

 _Go shatter_.

He heard a voice in his head. The heat started to get stronger. It was not the warmth of a gentle fire. It was an inferno threatening to burst from him.

“No… _stop_!” _Stay inside_ , he commanded. But exactly what he was commanding, he did not know.

The heat flowed like a trail of molten lava up his chest and throat. Ren shuddered in fear. The overwhelming urge to keep it—whatever _it_ was—from getting out seized him. He clamped his lips shut. He could not allow it to—

“Aoba.” The voice that came from his mouth was steely and commanding. Ren straightened up, the expression on his face blank. “ _Hakai_ set.”

“Ren…?”

“ _Hakai_ set, Aoba.” His tone became more forceful.

Hesitantly, the AllMate nodded. “Got it.” He raised his arms before him, and the skin and clothes from his elbows down broke apart into dark panels and shapes that vaguely resembled a large black cannon. A blue ball of energy materialized near the end, and blue bolts of electricity cackled around the AllMate's arms. Aoba aimed at the green-headed rabbit and fired.

The other AllMate evaded with a swerve to its right, but a good number of the smaller rabbits behind him were not as lucky, scattering and squealing as the ball of energy whizzed through them. The other Rhymer was in the shot's path as well, but they leapt up just as it neared, escaping the attack narrowly.

Ren watched all this with indifference, but once the damage had been done, he let out a gasp and bent over, holding a shaking hand to his throat. “What…what happened?”

He remembered panicking at the feeling of heat rising up his throat and him telling it to stop, and then he had felt his mouth open on its own. As he panted lightly, he realized the heat had dissipated, and back in its place was the frigid chill in his veins.

“You told me to attack,” Aoba told him. The AllMate's arms reverted to normal, with some small traces of electricity dying out around his fingers.

“I did?” That was impossible. He did not know the first thing when it came to fighting Rhyme battles, and he had no memory of ever equipping Aoba with any options to play Rhyme in the first place.

“ _HeE_ , sO yOu WeRe HoLdInG bAcK aFtEr AlL. _pI!_ ” The masked Rhymer had regrouped their remaining AllMates, and despite having lost a good number of the white rabbits after Aoba's attack, they did not appear to be concerned in any way. “I wOn'T hOlD bAcK aNyMoRe EiThEr. _Pi!_ ”

They nodded once at the green-headed AllMate, and it raised its hand. “ _Ha_ SeT.”

“Roger!” the white rabbits that were left cried in unison. Ren thought that they were going to charge straight for him and Aoba again, but to his surprise, they shot off to different directions.

It was a moment too late when what they were planning to do registered in Ren's mind. The rabbits all turned sharply and headed toward them. He and Aoba were completely surrounded.

“Ren! What do you want me to do?” Aoba asked, but Ren could not think of anything. What commands did they use in Rhyme? What had he said earlier?

The brunet could only say the first thing that came to mind. “D-defense!”

“Got it!”

Aoba raised his hands to his sides, and a translucent sphere of blue surrounded the two of them, just in time to block the first wave of rabbits. The barrage of strong impacts made the sphere shake violently, and owner and AllMate gritted their teeth as they hoped the barrier would hold.

Unfortunately, the assault proved to be too much, and as another round of strikes came, Aoba's shield gave way, and Ren cried out as he was hit directly, one strike after the other—head, shoulder, chest, stomach, hip, knee…His vision blurred and darkened, and his consciousness slipped away. His head lolled back, and his body fell limp.

As the sounds of Rhyme drifted farther and farther away, Ren thought he heard someone whisper close to his ear.

_Go shatter and break apart._

 

* * *

It was like he was floating.

Was he still in Rhyme? Had the rabbits stopped charging at him and Aoba? Did that mean he had lost? Could he and Aoba log out already?

He tried to move any part of his body, but he could not sense where his arms and legs were. There was his torso, though, and it was gently swaying. Was somebody taking him away? Was it the Rhymer with the rabbit mask?

His hearing started to return, and he picked up sounds that were familiar but that he could not identify outright. There were voices…One was singing—hearing it made him feel incredibly calm. The other…He knew that voice. He was _supposed_ to know that voice.

“Ren!”

Ah, he was not floating anymore. Something hard was against his back and under his legs and buttocks. The sensation of his body returned bit by bit. He attempted to open his eyes, but his eyelids were heavy like lead. He could only manage to open them enough to see what appeared like his legs, but everything was too blurry—all he could see were shapeless blobs of colors. He closed his eyes.

It was freezing, too. He shook, and his teeth chattered. Where had he put his jacket? He was turning into ice…

“Wait a minute! I'll get Bonjin-san!” That voice, who was it? There was the sound of soft footsteps running away from him. Was he being left behind, again?

He raised his arm shakily, but halfway through the act, the reason why he was doing it seemed to have escaped him. He let his arm drop and waited to feel his hand hit the ground. However, something caught it by the wrist. Ren tried to see what it was, but his eyelids protested against opening once more, and before he drifted off, he heard the same voice that had been singing a while ago.

“Are you alright, Master?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Aoba's outfit here is much like [the black one](http://i.imgur.com/wrVAeVI.jpg) drawn for Chiral Night: Dive into DMMd.
> 
> ** I used the Japanese (on) readings (with a lot of help from my teacher) for the Rhyme sets like in the game 83 (as for why, you'll find out in a couple more chapters ouo;):
> 
> _Bou_ → “To die/perish” (aka “Death” set)  
>  _Ha_ → “To destroy/break”  
>  _Hakai_ → “Destruction”
> 
>   
> ~~Oh, I wonder who that last speaker was.~~ *cough* (wellitmightormightnotbewhoyourethinking)
> 
> Anyway, thank you for reading this chapter (シ_ _)シ I'm sorry again for the slow update. Please let me know if you liked it.
> 
> Also, this has become my pet project of sorts, and someone suggested I make a Tumblr for all my headcanons and stuff, so um, I did ([over here~](http://doramada-reverse.tumblr.com)). Soooo if anyone's got some questions (I take care with spoilers I swear) or want to spaz with me over all the Rens please drop byヾ(=ﾟ･ﾟ=)ﾉ (I am a huge dork, though, so I apologize in advance.)
> 
> Lastly, since it's just a few days away, advanced Merry Christmas, you guys!! (ΦωΦ)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Ren makes a new friend and has a long talk with an old one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a small warning that there's a bit of strong language in this chapter :3

“That's pretty kind of Bonjin-san to let you off early.”

“Yes, it is. I have to make sure to find a way to make up for my lost hours. And for losing the package as well.”

“Yeah…but are you sure you should be walking on your own? Maybe we should've gone with Bonjin-san's suggestion and called _baa-chan_ or Beni.”

“Like I said, it's alright. I took Tae-san's medicine, so it should be fine. And anyway, the sleepiness is mostly gone, I think.”

Ren exhaled as he and Aoba walked side by side. The sun had just began to set, bathing the entire Old Residential District in a faint yellowish orange. He raised a hand to his face and rubbed an eye to get rid of the blurring in the edges of his vision.

The immediate aftermath of the Rhyme battle with the player with the rabbit mask was mostly a muddle to him, and he was only beginning to make sense of some of the things that had happened earlier. He had woken up in Heibon's basement, with Aoba and Bonjin at his side. The older man had told him that he found him unconscious just outside of the shop, and that it was thanks to Aoba. The AllMate had rushed into Heibon in a panic and was the one who brought Bonjin to where Ren was lying.

Ren's body had felt like it had been encased in concrete when he had awoken. For the first few minutes, he was barely able to move his hands and head, and everything that came out from his mouth was slurred and incoherent. He was fortunate enough that Bonjin knew about the medications he took and was able to get them from his bag with Aoba's help, but even after Ren had taken the pills, it had been a good half hour or so before the heaviness in his limbs lifted and his mind began to clear, although he had appeared far from alright, so Bonjin told him to take the rest of the day off and head home. That was the reason why he and Aoba were making their way down the street they were on, with the Rhyme battle's effects on his body reduced to a noticeable unsteadiness in his gait.

“Wah! Mama, look!” A young boy stopped a short distance from the two of them and stared and pointed up at Ren with wide-eyed interest. The boy's mother immediately went to him, tugged at his hand, and hushed him before giving Ren an apologetic bow. The brunet smiled and shook his head to tell her it was fine, not paying much attention to the way one of her eyes had twitched as she was looking at his face.

“ _Ano_ …that's good to hear,” Aoba continued after the mother and son had left and he and Ren had resumed walking. “About the sleepiness, I mean. I'm not detecting any abnormalities too, thank god, although…” He paused and looked up at his owner briefly, the fact that he was bothered by something apparent in his face.

A soft humming filled the air, but it came from neither Aoba nor Ren. The latter gave a small yawn and rubbed his eye again. “I'm sorry, Aoba. What did you say?” Something long and white flopped against the side of his face, and Ren casually brushed it back.

The blue collie sighed and shook his head. “That…Just what are you planning to do with _that_?”

“That?”

“That jellyfish on your head, Ren!”

The both of them stopped. Ren stared at his AllMate and then glanced up at the object that was sitting and humming on top of his head. It stopped humming after realizing that both Ren and Aoba were focused on it, and it leapt (or, rather, _bounced_ ) off Ren and floated by his side.

As Aoba said, it was a jellyfish, although it looked closer to being a toy replica than the actual living creature. Most of its body was a translucent white, except for the frilly lining around the bottom of its dome-shaped head, which was a pale yellow instead. It had a cartoonish face: two thick and short lines for eyes and a pink upside-down triangle for a smiling mouth. It bobbed a couple of times in mid-air and then twirled around. “Is something wrong, Master?” it asked Ren in a cheerful and childlike tone.

Aoba groaned and sat down. “You're what's wrong, technically speaking.”

“ _Eee_?”

Ren rubbed the top of the floating jellyfish's head. “It's nothing, Clear.”

“Okay, Master!”

Running into Clear just as he had left Heibon earlier had given Ren quite a good surprise. The jellyfish had dropped down from nowhere and had instantly attached itself to Ren, referring to him as “Master.” Ren had thought that Clear had been someone's idea of a bad prank or a malfunctioning AllMate that had mistaken him for his owner, until Aoba told him that Clear was, much to his astonishment, the one who had brought the two of them to Heibon after they had collapsed from the Rhyme battle.

“I still find it hard to believe,” Ren said while Clear idly swayed beside him. The jellyfish's movements were so smooth and light that it was easy to mistake him for swimming in actual water. “I didn't think Clear could bear my weight when he looks so…fragile.”

“I know.” Aoba ducked his head as Clear passed over him to avoid the latter's tentacles. “But I swear, when I started up again, he was already carrying us both. I thought we were still in Rhyme till my sensors gave off warnings about your state.”

“If it's Master, I can lift you as high as you want!” Clear went behind Ren and wrapped his tentacles around the brunet's waist. Ren was then promptly lifted several centimeters off the ground. He reflexively held on to Clear, while Aoba uttered a worried “ _Oi_!” The strange scene quickly managed to attract the attention of people passing by, and Ren gave them an awkward smile, unsure as to how he should explain why a grown man was being carried by a toy jellyfish by the road.

Clear did not seem to sense his discomfort, Aoba's irritation, or the others' curious looks and instead began to sway Ren slowly like he was cradling a child. “See? I can lift Master!”

“I-I get it, Clear.” Ren tapped the tentacles around him. “Can you put me down? Please.”

“Alright, Master!”

Ren was thankful that Clear appeared to be relatively easy to talk to, and he was quickly settled back down on the ground just as he had requested.

“Don't just go doing things like that out of the blue! Geez!” Aoba took a deep breath. “And just what are you, anyway, being so strong like that?”

“I'm actually curious about that too,” said Ren. “I thought Clear is an AllMate, but I may be wrong. I've never seen a model like him before.” Most of the AllMates he had come across were shaped like dogs, cats, birds—types that were easy to move around but did not look too out of place. There were rarer ones like turtles and lizards, but he had never come across or heard of one that was designed as a jellyfish. He placed a hand on Clear's head, and Clear stopped moving about and began to twirl around in place like a ballerina in a music box. “He does not seem to have the usual ports and control panels AllMates have. Aoba, do you think he could be a prototype for a new series?”

“ _Hee_? Prototype? I'm a jellyfish, Master!” Clear pressed up against Ren's palm.

“That's obvious,” Aoba said. “What we're talking about here is exactly what _type_ of jellyfish you are, Clear.”

“Type? It's not enough that I'm a jellyfish? _A_! Then, I'm a jellyfish named Clear!”

“That's not it!”

Ren was unable to hold back a small laugh at Aoba and Clear's exchange. Aoba's growing frustration was obvious, but Clear showed no signs of being fazed by it at all. “If Clear insists he's a jellyfish, then I guess we can leave it at that, for now.” Ren removed his hand from Clear's head. “But don't you have an owner? I'm grateful that you helped us and kept us company, but isn't your owner looking for you right now?”

“Owner? But Master is my owner!”

Ren and Aoba exchanged confused looks.

“By ‘Master,’ you mean Ren, right?”

Clear bobbed once in what Ren assumed was a nod.

“I thought referring to people as ‘Master’ was just part of his programming,” said Ren. “I can't be your owner, Clear.”

“But I was sent to stay with Master, so that makes Master my owner, right?”

Aoba tilted his head. “Well, who sent you then?”

“ _A_ , I don't know. I only know I was sent to stay by Master's side, so that is what I am going to do.” Clear rose up and settled on Ren's head like he had done earlier. “And I like Master. Because Master's hair is so fluffy!” He began to toy with the ends of Ren's unruly hair, playfully repeating “Fluffy, fluffy!” as he did so. The brunet flinched a bit when he felt a particularly strong tug or two but did not try to stop Clear. He had never been too fond of his hair and its refusal to cooperate with his attempts to tame it, so it was somewhat refreshing to find someone so amused by it as Clear was.

“ _Geh_. This guy is hopeless, Ren.”

“I don't think he means us any harm, Aoba. And we do owe him for helping us. For the meantime, I suppose we can just let him be.”

“What about who sent him? That could be the rabbit guy we met in Rhyme, you know!”

“I think that isn't the case. And we can examine him later if he has anything else with him. Besides, he'll probably continue to follow us even if we don't bring him along.”

Aoba sighed and bowed his head. “Fine.”

Ren leaned down a little and gave his AllMate a thankful rub on the head.

“Why does Aoba-san look so down? Is it because I said Master is so fluffy? But you're really fluffy too, Aoba-san!”

“That's not it, you idiot!”

Ren covered his mouth with the back of one hand to hide his laugh, but a sharp glare from Aoba told him that the AllMate caught him nevertheless.

They resumed walking, and Clear began to hum again after they had gone a meter or so. Ren found himself drawn in by the sound and remembered hearing it after collapsing from the Rhyme battle. So that had been Clear. And the feeling of lightness, of floating, was probably because Clear had been carrying him and Aoba then.

 _I feel rather light now too, actually_ , Ren mused. It was not the same as the weightlessness he experienced while Clear was carrying him, but the sensation was comparable enough, as if the weight of his body had somehow been halved.

He let out a yawn as they turned a corner, and he then bumped into a woman headed the opposite way. When he turned to give her an apology, he saw her staring at him warily, rubbing her upper arm, where he had hit her. Ren gave a curt bow and apologized, but she walked off before he could finish, although she threw him a glance or two, continuing to rub her arm.

Ren figured the way she looked at him might have been because of how odd he appeared, with Clear on his head, but that did not explain her odd fixation on her arm. He checked his left arm, which was what came into contact with her, to see if there was some dirt there that could have prompted such a reaction from her, but there was none.

He decided to brush his thoughts aside and to simply head home as another yawn crept up his throat. He should get home soon, he thought. He was getting sleepy again.

 

* * *

 

“Tae-san, I'm home.” Ren leaned against the entryway wall and tugged his shoes off one after the other. Clear curiously hovered by him as he did so, while Aoba hopped onto the elevated wooden floor and sat down to wait for him. After setting his shoes down beside the two other pairs of footwear on the floor (one of which—a pair of _geta_ with red straps—made him pause for a second when he saw them), Ren stepped onto the elevated flooring.

“ _Yo_! You're early today, aren't you, Ren?”

Ren turned to a cabinet to his right. Perched on his grandmother's pinkish telephone was Koujaku.

“I knew it. Those _geta_ are Beni's.”

“Who else?” Koujaku spread his wings and flew over to Ren's shoulder then looked down at the blue collie at Ren's feet. “ _Yo_ , Aoba! I see you're doing well.”

“You too, Koujaku,” Aoba replied. “So how many girls did you manage to charm today?”

“Ah, not that many, sadly. Beni's focused on Reika-chan right now. Oh, and what's with the jellyfish? Don't tell me you got a new AllMate, Ren.”

“No, he didn't!” Aoba retorted hotly.

“It's a long story,” Ren said. “But he's staying with us for the moment. We aren't sure if you can call him an AllMate, however.”

The door that led to the kitchen and living room slid open, and Beni appeared in the doorway with a wide grin. Seeing him, the finch AllMate left Ren and nestled on Beni's shoulder. “ _Oi_ , Ren! How long are you planning to stay there? Tae-san's almost done with dinner, and it smells great!”

“Anything _baa-chan_ makes smells great to you, Beni,” Aoba teased. “You dropped by without warning again, huh?”

“Not like I can help it. Tae-san's the best cook in Midorijima, after all!” Beni stood aside and let Ren and Aoba pass by him. “Plus, I told Ren, right?” He was about to close the door when Clear swiftly ducked under his arm and headed for Ren, making the redhead jerk back in surprise.

“A new friend,” Ren said before Beni could ask anything. The confusion was very apparent on the redhead's face, but Ren simply smiled at him.

Clear was rather pleased by how Ren had introduced him, and he went up to Beni, leaving barely a centimeter or two between their faces, and said, “Pleased to meet you, Beni-san, Koujaku-san! I'm Clear and I'll be staying with Master!”

“Uh…h-hi, C-Clear…?” Beni glanced at Ren, who replied with a small tilt of his head and then headed to the kitchen, where Tae was already busying herself in front of the stove. Beni was right—an amazing aroma filled the air, but that was already expected with his grandmother and her cooking.

“Tae-san, I'm home,” Ren repeated as he approached her. She made a small sound of acknowledgment while she sipped a small amount of the soup she was cooking to test the taste. Anyone else looking at her would have immediately assumed she was annoyed, and true enough, that was the impression she gave whenever Beni passed by to join them for meals. But Ren knew his grandmother did not dislike the redhead's occasional visits. After all, with only the two of them in the house—and Ren at Heibon most of the time—things must get quite lonely for her.

Tae waved a hand toward a small stack of plates on the counter nearby, and Ren nodded in understanding. He took the plates, yawning slightly, then moved toward the table, but before he could even put them down, he heard Tae say, “Wait.”

“Yes, Tae-san?”

A deep crease was between his grandmother's eyebrows. His first thought was that her reaction was because of Clear, who was still talking cheerfully to a puzzled Beni by the door. However, she was staring straight only at him. He blinked, unable to figure out the reason for her expression. “Is…is something on my face?”

“Are you alright?” The question was curt, said in the tone that Tae used whenever she was speaking to people who sought her medical expertise. A detached, analytical tone, but one mixed with a hint of alarm.

Ren was uncomfortable with the sudden change of atmosphere. He thought of the Rhyme battle, of the state he had been in when he had woken up in Heibon. “Generally, yes. _Ano_ …to be honest, something did happen earlier. But right now, I feel fine. I feel sleepy, but nothing beyond the usual range.”

Just as he finished speaking, Ren's vision blurred for a moment, and his eyelids became heavy. He balanced the plates on one hand and rubbed his eyes with the back of the other. _That's odd. It's still early, isn't it?_

The crease between Tae's brows deepened, and she reached out to grab Ren's free hand by the wrist. But when her fingers brushed against his skin, she instantly withdrew as if she had been electrified. The action startled Ren as well, and the plates on his hand dropped onto the wooden table with a loud clatter. The noise the plates made instantly captured everyone else's attention, and the entire house went silent.

Ren swallowed. Tae's expression and actions somewhat reminded him of the woman he had run into on the way home, except that instead of rubbing her shoulder, Tae alternately looked at him and then the tips of her fingers, as if he had transferred some substance he could not see to her skin.

“What happened?” Beni asked as he went to them.

“I'm not sure,” Ren said. “Tae-san—”

“Beni,” Tae interrupted. “Get my med kit. It's in the cabinet under the TV. Aoba, show him where it is.”

“O-okay…? But—”

“Quickly!”

Both Beni and Aoba rushed off to do as she said, albeit a little hesitant and baffled by what was happening.

Tae shifted her focus to her grandson and pulled him by the arm, this time firmly holding him. “Come with me.”

“T-to where? Did I do something wrong, Tae-san?”

The sharp glare Tae sent him made Ren purse his lips. Her expression meant that there was no time for questions. He let her drag him over to the couch in their living room, where Beni and Aoba were fishing out her white plastic medical kit from the TV cabinet. Beni set it down on the table in front of the couch and stood back with the blue collie, both of them as tense as soldiers at attention.

“You really don't feel anything?” Tae asked as she took the kit and opened it.

Ren shook his head. “I don't understand, Tae-san. Am I supposed to be feeling something in particular?”

“You're cold as ice, Ren.”

 

* * *

 

Ren was not sure how it was possible. He had gotten very much used to the occasional chills his body had due to his condition, but never had his temperature dropped without him being aware of it. He was certain that up until he had reached home, he had felt normal, without the slightest hint of shivering, so when Tae told him that his skin was extremely cold, practically freezing, to the touch, it took him some time to believe it. Beni also touched him and recoiled in the same way Tae had, and even then, their reactions and what Ren sensed from his body had a huge disconnect.

He was not the tiniest bit cold, but he was not exactly warm either.

His condition gave him a particular attention and sensitivity to temperature, both his own and that of his surroundings, and it dawned on him that that was the first time his body felt like it had no temperature at all. He was not even able to sense Tae's warmth from where she touched him. He felt her hands, yes, but it was like there was an unseen film between them that allowed him to sense the contact—where it was, how heavy or light—but not how cold or warm it was.

Tae, as she worked, was silent, and so was everyone else. Beni and Aoba made quite a racket at first, throwing question after question while Tae began to check him, but after she yelled at them to keep quiet so she could focus, they did not make another peep. They showed much more hesitation to obey her, however, when she told them to wait upstairs in Ren's room, but any protests from them were instantly nipped in the bud with a glare from his grandmother. They trudged up the stairs, Aoba taking a still lively Clear with them.

With him and Tae being the only ones left in the room, all the urgency and panic earlier seemed to him a big exaggeration. Tae was doing as she had always done during his checkups—taking his temperature, looking at the movements of his eyes, checking the inside of his mouth—so when she gave him a small container of pills that were different from those he usually took, he stared at her and asked if she had made a mistake.

“Take two of those and go take a warm bath.” That was all Tae said as she closed her medical kit. Even those instructions were already very familiar to him—she had even given almost the same ones yesterday—but still, something at the back of his head nagged him.

Nevertheless, Ren obeyed and swallowed two of the new pills before heading off to bathe.

The moment he stepped into the bathroom, he finally felt it.

 The shaking had begun from his hands and feet, like always, a subtle trembling, but it only took a few seconds before he was desperately dashing to the shower and turning the knob for the hot water as far as his shaking hands allowed. He was not able to spare even a short while to remove his clothes, and the water drenched him, clothes and all, until the warmth finally returned to his body.

He stayed in the bath a little longer than he had done before, taking a good long _warm_ soak in the bathtub after finding the strength to move again and rid himself of his wet clothing, putting them haphazardly in the hamper by the door. By the time he was done and had gone out of the tub, a dry change of clothes was already waiting for him on top of the hamper. He had not heard the door open while he was bathing, perhaps thanks to being overcome with relief, and he assumed that Tae must have been the one who left the clothes.

After getting dressed, Ren headed up to his room. He had expected to see Beni and Aoba impatiently pacing about or fidgeting while sitting on his bed, but when he opened the door, his room was undisturbed, and Beni and Aoba were not where he had thought they would be. There was a slight breeze coming in, though, and Ren saw that the door to his balcony was open.

He found Beni sitting cross-legged on the balcony floor, back pressed against the house wall. Aoba's head was on his lap, and the blue AllMate appeared to be in sleep mode while Beni absentmindedly ran one hand through the lump of fur around the collie's neck. Koujaku was perched on Aoba's head and was in sleep mode as well. As for Clear, the jellyfish was hovering just above Beni's head, eyes turned up at the evening sky as if he was stargazing.

Ren had not anticipated to find them so calm, especially Beni. There was a piece of paper in the redhead's other hand and a worn pencil caught between his teeth, and his face was scrunched up in deep focus as he stared at the paper. He withdrew his hand from Aoba for a moment to scratch his head.

“Is that a new design?”

Beni jerked at the sound of Ren's voice, and the pencil fell from his mouth to his lap, narrowly missing Aoba's head. “Ren! Shit! You almost gave me a heart attack! You okay now? Tae-san she gave you meds but…”

“Yes. It was a shock though. When I finally felt how cold I was. I didn't realize my temperature had gone so low.” Ren moved to the railing and rested his forearms on the ledge.

“Master!” Clear darted to him and alighted on his head, gleefully playing with his hair again. Ren told him that his hair was still wet, but Clear only continued to fluff his hair up with childlike amusement.

“That guy's one weird AllMate. Is it a new model or something?” Beni carefully shifted in position and lifted Aoba's head off his lap so he could get onto his knees. After lowering the sleeping AllMate's head to the floor, he pocketed the pencil he dropped, straightened up, and went over to the railing as well.

“I'm not sure. We simply found him earlier. Or maybe it should be better to say he found us.” Ren gently pried Clear from his hair, and he was grateful when the latter yielded and went over to Aoba. “Anyway, that paper…you're working on a new kimono?”

“A new commission.” Beni grinned and proudly waved the piece of paper in front of him. On it were several sketches, at the center of which were outlines of a kimono opened and spread out. An intricate design of cherry blossoms and tapering branches covered the bottom part and scattered upward to the upper back and the long outstretched sleeves. At the margins were plenty of notes, all done in Beni's scratchy handwriting.

“A _furisode_?”* Ren asked. “For whom? With so much detail, I'm certain the wearer's quite special.”

Beni sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck and gazed down at the narrow alley beneath them. “Kind of. I met someone the other day at Itachi's place. She's really nice. Really pretty, too.”

“Oh. Itachi told me something like that. Koujaku mentioned something earlier too. I believe the name was Reika?”

Beni's cheeks turned a light pink, and he rubbed at his nose as if to avoid embarrassment. “Yeah. She's a regular at Itachi's. He told her about my designs, and she asked me if I could make her one. I told her sure, since I just finished that last job after all.”

“Itachi was quite amused when he told me. He did not tease you again, did he?”

“Of course, he did! You know that bastard.” Beni groaned exasperatedly. “That guy hasn't given me a break especially after that thing with Sachiko. Says I really suck with picking up girls.”

All Ren knew about “Sachiko” was that she had been the last girl Beni had been infatuated with, and that it did not end too well. And all of that Ren had learned secondhand from Itachi, who had some strange fascination with Beni's romances that often put him at the receiving end of the redhead's notorious outbursts.

“What about Koujaku?” said Ren. “He does help you, doesn't he?”

“I'm starting to regret setting him up as ‘charming.’ He talks to girls way better than I do.”

“Ah, well…” Ren silently agreed with Beni's observation. It might have been thanks to the personality setting Beni gave him, but Koujaku, for an AllMate, did have a type of charisma that impressed even Ren. “Anyway, Beni, about your design. It looks beautiful as always. I hope you'll let me see it when it's finished.”

Beni's face lit up at the brunet's words. “Of course!” he said with a grin. “Though I'd like it way better if I get to make you one.”

Ren shook his head. “I do not think I will do your works any justice. My body's too stiff.”

Beni pouted. “You keep saying that, but you liked wearing them when you were still a shrimp. And I already told you I don't care about you being stiff. I wanna design one and see you wear it. Don't underestimate the great Beni!”

Ren laughed. Beni's skill with designing and dyeing kimonos was not exactly commonplace knowledge in Midorijima. Some people found it just too difficult to reconcile with the fact that a man as loud and irritable as him could have the patience to make the kimonos he did, and it was harder to accept when Beni himself dressed in such simple clothes—the only design on his _uwagi_ was a line of white dots on his back and sleeves. There was still a fairly good number of people who knew of him, however, and often commissioned him for pieces for special occasions (although he was rather erratic with accepting and declining clients). And even if his ability did not show on his clothing, Beni subtly showcased it somewhere else—Koujaku was popular not only for his charm but also for the ornate images of pinkish white flowers and blue leaves painted on his red feathers.

Most of Beni's regulars had been clients of his mother, who was the one who had taught him in the first place. Ren had only a few clear memories of her, back when he used to go over to Beni's old house as a young child to play. Tae was the one who told him later on about the popularity of her kimonos, after she and Beni left the island when he was barely six, before Toue Co. had seized control of and limited all modes of transportation to and from Midorijima. It had been almost a year since Beni returned, alone, but Ren had not taken any chances to ask him about her. He was under the impression that Beni did not want to talk about her either, so he left it at that.

“ _Oi_ , Ren. Back to what happened to you,” said Beni. “You seriously didn't know your body was freezing?”

Ren's face turned solemn, and he shook his head.

The redhead furrowed his brows and leaned against the railing. “Has it ever been that bad before? I mean, Tae-san looked like it was serious, and you had me worried as fuck. You felt like a corpse.” He shuddered.

“Nothing like that has happened before. At least as far as I can recall.” Ren stared at the palm of one hand and tentatively flexed his fingers. The movements were awkward. There was a rigidness in his joints. “Tae-san gave me some new medicine, although she didn't tell me why. But other than that, she didn't do anything new or different.”

“Do you have a clue what could've caused it? It's not your fall yesterday, was it? Don't tell me it was because I let you go off on your own last night! I knew I should've stayed!”

Ren sensed the quick rise in Beni's voice and shook his head. “It's not that, I'm quite sure. There wasn't anything particularly strange with my condition yesterday.” Except for the change in his birthmarks, but he opted not to tell Beni. “If there was anything that could've caused it…”

Ren inhaled sharply. The Rhyme battle. It could only be that, right?

“What, Ren?”

The brunet straightened up, hesitated, and then replied, “This morning…I was on a delivery this morning when Aoba and I suddenly got pulled into Rhyme.”

“Pulled into Rhyme?”

“I'm not sure if it's that, exactly. But Aoba said it _was_ Rhyme. We ended up fighting another player, too.”

“How'd that happen? Did you get caught up with a bunch of Rhymers again?”

“That's the strange thing. Sei was not there, and there were no Rhymers nearby.”

“No Sei? You sure?” Beni regarded him doubtfully. “Is that even possible? Isn't it the rule that Sei has to be there for all the games?”

“I can't say how exactly, but it did happen. I thought you may have a clue. We were on 142nd street when it occurred. That is within Benishigure's territory, correct?”

“Yeah…” A clouded expression came over Beni's face. He did not speak for a few moments and looked to be deep in thought. “You said you fought another player. Anything weird about that guy?”

Ren did not know what exactly was considered weird for Rhymers and what was normal for them. Was wearing a mask and speaking in a distorted voice supposed to be weird, or did other Rhymers do that too, like the Rhyme counterpart to masked wrestling? How about the multiple AllMates? (Were all those rabbits even separate AllMates? For all he knew, they could have been just one split apart into tiny pieces.) “That…That person knew my name. And they said something else. ‘Dusk Blue.’ I think it sounded like that.”

“Dusk Blue? The hell is that? _A,_ but you're sure that guy knew your name? You weren't mistaken for someone else?”

“Yes. They even called me by my complete name.”

“That so…? Might've been _tsujigiri_ ,** huh?”

Ren tilted his head. “ _Tsujigiri_?”

“I've only heard it from the guys on my team, but they said there are Rhymers who can get into Rhyme even without Sei. I heard they drag random people into their game too. That's _tsujigiri_.”

“The name's rather ominous, isn't it?”

“It's got a reason to be. No Sei, no rules, so all those fuckers can do whatever they want in the game. Some people who get pulled in end up half-dead when they're done, so it's really not different from being ambushed on the streets. Those shitheads piss me off bad. They don't care who they attack as long as they can show off that they can slip through and bend the rules.”

“Then what happened to me…It's _tsujigiri_?”

“That's my best bet. But you did say the guy who dragged you in knew your name, so maybe it's planned. Any idea if you crossed a Rhymer or two lately?”

“No. I don't know any Rhymers, and yesterday was the first time I've seen a Rhyme game up close.”

Beni groaned loudly and furiously rubbed the back of his head. “This really pisses me off. It's great you got out of that one, but now I'm sure that was no random attack. Who knows if that fucker's gonna strike again!”

“I'll do my best to be careful,” Ren tried to assure him. He was aware, however, that Beni would not be so easily pacified. Especially not in the state he was in now.

Beni glared at the ground below. “ _Tch_. Those Rhymers…Just because they got a new toy doesn't mean they can go around attacking people behind their computer screens! I want to see how they do if you put them in a _real_ fight, not one that's just in their heads!”

“You sound like Itachi. He said something like that too.”

“Well, I don't get why people would choose that over Rib. Now I get why Itachi's so down lately.”

“What do you mean?”

“He was pretty out of it when we were drinking last night. I thought he was just tired, but maybe it's getting to him. This Rhyme business.”

Ren said nothing. He remembered how Itachi had looked yesterday, when they had talked about Rhyme.

With no response from the brunet, Beni walked over to Aoba, picked Koujaku up, and tucked the bird AllMate into his _uwagi_. “Sorry, Ren. I think I'm gonna go home for tonight.”

“Oh, but about dinner…?”

“I'll do a rain check some other time. I remembered there's something I have to do.” The paper with the sketches was still in Beni's hands, and when he brought it up to fold it before tucking it into his pocket, Ren noticed how wrinkled it had become compared to when Beni was showing it proudly to him just a while ago.

“I see. Take care on your way back, then.”

“ _A_ , but before I go…” Beni suddenly walked up to the other male, and Ren backed up against the balcony railing in surprise. “You _sure_ you're okay?”

“Y-yes…?”

Beni narrowed his eyes and stared at Ren's face as if to search for some sign of a lie. Apparently finding none, he said, “Fine. If anything happens, you've got to absolutely tell me, you got that?

“U-understood.” Beni had always shown a good level of concern for Ren, but the insistence he was displaying at the moment made it come across much stronger that Ren unconsciously curved inward at the shoulders like a cornered mouse. The two of them might have been grown adults already, with Ren having a good several centimeters over his friend, but the protectiveness Beni had for him in their childhood had doggedly persisted and was gushing out in full force.

“Good.” Beni grinned, and Ren felt his shoulders relax. “You're a lot easier to talk to now, but you do still give off the same feeling, Ren.”

The same feeling? “What do you mean?”

“Too closed off. I wonder how Tae-san deals with you sometimes,” Beni said as he rolled a shoulder back and glanced to his side. Ren could not make out what he meant, but just as he was about to ask, Beni reached forward and gave him a light knock on the shoulder. “See ya.” Without waiting for a reply, he turned on his heel and strode out of Ren's room.

A long breath escaped Ren as the redhead's footsteps faded out of earshot. The way their conversation had turned out left a heavy feeling in his chest. There were so many things he wanted to think about, but he did not know where to start.

Well, he told himself, there was the Rhyme battle. The way Beni had reacted to finding out about his encounter gave the impression that it definitely was no light matter. There was no way for him to tell absolutely that it was the cause for the strange development in his condition earlier, but there was no denying that he had felt himself freeze up during the game. He was in quite a bad condition when he had woken up after it too, and neither he nor Aoba had any memory of how it had ended, how they managed to log out.

“Ah, that's right. I have to check Aoba.”

He went over to his sleeping AllMate. Clear was still hovering over the collie like a balloon, and when he perked up at Ren's approach, the brunet remembered that he had been there the entire time he and Beni were talking. Ren was a little taken aback that Clear had actually managed to stay still and silent the entire time. The moment Clear saw him coming closer, though, the jellyfish immediately called him “Master” again and reclaimed his spot on Ren's head.

Ren bent down and pressed down on the top of Aoba's head to get the collie out of sleep mode. There was a short buzz, and Aoba opened his eyes and lifted his head. “Ren!” he cried out in obvious relief. “How was it? Are you okay now?”

The brunet nodded and ruffled Aoba's fur from his head to his neck. “I'm fine, thanks to Tae-san. My body's warmed up again.”

Aoba got onto his feet and looked up at his owner, and Ren could tell clearly that the AllMate was troubled. “I'm sorry. I don't understand why, but I didn't pick up any warning signs. And that's supposed to be part of my job…” Aoba lowered his head, and his ears drooped.

“It's not your fault,” Ren said. “Your monitors have always worked well. Maybe it has something to do with our getting pulled into Rhyme earlier.”

The AllMate's ears perked up. “You think so?”

“I think it would be safe to assume that I was not the only one affected by Rhyme. You were there too, after all, and you did tell me you don't remember how we got out too. There might have been some damage on your part as well. I should run some diagnostics, to be sure.”

“Okay!”

They went back into the room, and Ren closed the balcony door behind them. Aoba headed straight to a corner of the room, where Ren's computer sat on a low table, and paused by a bundle of cables lying on the floor. Ren then settled down on a floor cushion beside him before turning the computer on. Aoba lay flat down and let his owner open the control and maintenance panel on his back and attach the cables to the ports inside.

“What is Master doing?” Clear asked while Ren reached for the keyboard with one hand, the other holding onto a couple of the cables, and tapped some keys. Several windows of information appeared on the screen, and Ren's amber eyes carefully scrutinized each one.

“I am checking if Aoba's systems are working as usual.”

“ _Hee_?” Clear moved to get a closer look at the monitor. “So all these are about Aoba-san? So many!”

“Aoba doesn't have the unified core the new AllMates have, so each aspect has to be managed differently.” Ren tapped another button and brought up another window. His brow twitched as he watched the fluctuating numbers displayed.

“Well sorry for being an old model,” Aoba muttered sulkily.

“That has never been any problem for me, Aoba,” said Ren in a soft voice. Aoba had been with him for around a decade already, and that was a very long time for an AllMate, considering that most people changed AllMates around three years or so, especially since the newer series were released, with a better integration with coils and fully digital maintenance and updating. It was already quite rare for someone to have to use another computer to check an AllMate's status. It was only one of the things Ren had to deal with for keeping a model like Aoba's, but he had never thought of getting another AllMate. Aoba was all he needed.

“It seems like there really has been an effect on you, Aoba. Your monitors' processing speed has gone down, and there's some minor dysfunction in reading input data…”

“ _E_? You think that's why I couldn't detect your temperature earlier?”

“That's highly likely. Changing one of your chips might be able to remedy that. Please wait a moment.” Ren carefully pulled out the cables and then took a toolkit from underneath the computer table. He took a pair of tweezers from the kit and used them to take a chip out of Aoba's panel. He then opened a small box in the kit and put the chip inside before taking a different chip from the same box and inserting it into the empty slot where he took the first one. Ren then returned the tweezers into the toolkit and closed the panel. “Bonjin-san gave me that new chip last week. How does it feel?”

Aoba sat up, blinked, and shook his head. “It feels a little weird, but maybe it's just my systems adapting. Everything is generally okay. Thank god Bonjin-san's still able to get chips like those nowadays!”

“He's very good with searching for phased-out parts. Perhaps that's why he's managed to keep Haga-kun working well up until now.” Ren slid his toolkit back under the table. “Let me know if any further problems come up, Aoba. I'm still quite worried about how Rhyme affected you.”

“ _Uwaa_! Master's like a doctor, aren't you, Master?” Clear wriggled excitedly, and that made Ren's head shake slightly in turn. “You just cured Aoba-san, right?”

The brunet laughed and took the jellyfish off him. “I'm not a doctor, Clear. That was simple maintenance. The doctor here would be Tae-san.”

“ _Ee_? But don't doctors fix things when there's something wrong? Tae-san fixed Master when there was something wrong with him, and Master fixed Aoba-san when there was something wrong with him too. So if Tae-san is a doctor, then Master is a doctor too, right?”

Ren smiled awkwardly, while Aoba groaned in irritation. “Geez. Whoever made this guy's got to check his programming. Anyway, thanks a lot, Ren, for taking care of me as always.” The AllMate looked to his owner and craned his neck upward, to which Ren responded by patting Aoba's head and leaning down to press their foreheads together. It was a habit they had long formed between the two of them, a sort of charm especially after Ren would finish maintenance on the blue collie.

“The same goes for me,” Ren murmured.***

“Hope you treat me well in the future too.”

“The same goes for me,” Ren repeated with a small smile.

“ _Aa_ , can I do that with Master too?” Clear slipped onto Ren's lap, making owner and AllMate pull back from each other, and looked up at his master expectantly.

Aoba grumbled at the intrusion and placed a heavy paw on Clear's head. “ _Oi_ , you! No way! That's only for Ren and me!”

“ _Hee_? But why?”

“I'm sorry, Clear.” Ren gave an apologetic smile and rubbed Clear's head.

“So I really can't? Then, can I ask why Master keeps saying that to Aoba-san? ‘The same goes for me.’”

“You're such a nosy guy, aren't you?” Aoba said. “That's just the way Ren always answers me.”

Ren blinked. Aoba was right. His replies were made more reflexively, and he had never really put that much thought into how they came across. “Do you find it strange?” he asked Aoba. “The way I respond, I mean.”

The blue AllMate turned to him. “Not really. I think it's pretty amusing. Ren is Ren after all. Being all formal like that is just like you.”

Formal. Being respectful to the people he knew was something that Ren always tried to keep in mind and practice, a sort of penance he had resolved to do to make up for all the trouble he made when he was younger, but somehow it bothered him that Aoba found him “formal.” Could that have been what Beni meant he said “too closed off”? Maybe he could try _that_ , he thought. How did it go again?”

Ren squared his shoulders and said, “I'm grateful to you five million times over, _baby_.”

The confused stare he got from Aoba was not what he was expecting. Had he gotten a word wrong? Was it his intonation? He was not used to having such a lilt to his voice, and with his voice being naturally low…

“What the heck was that?” Aoba finally said.

“You said you found my usual reply to be formal, so I tried changing the wording. How was it? I might have made a mistake or two. I can't remember exactly how Kaiser Matsuoka said it.”

Aoba broke into a fit of laughter, which left Ren dumbfounded. “I thought I heard it before! It was that dude Clara was fawning over. It sounds so weird! You're fine with the usual way you talk, Ren.”

“I see…I'll keep that in mind.” Ren smiled at his AllMate's words. Perhaps it had been too hasty of him to assume that Aoba was dissatisfied with his manner of speaking. If Aoba preferred him as he was, then it would be better to remain that way.

“Anyway, you should go to sleep. A lot of things happened today, and you'll need the rest.”

“Right.” The brunet got up and closed the lights while Aoba hopped onto the bed and curled up on his favored space by Ren's pillow. Clear, meanwhile, followed Ren as he moved around the room and headed to his bed. “Where do you want to sleep, Clear?” Ren asked as he sat on the mattress. “You're our guest, after all. There's still some space on my bed, if you want.”

“There's no need for that, Master. I'll just stay here and watch Master and Aoba-san.” “Here” was the space above Ren's bed, and Clear floated at a height that ensured that none of his tentacles would touch the covers.

“You mean you're not going to sleep?” asked Aoba.

Clear shook his head.

“Do you not have a sleep mode?” Ren said.

“Jellyfish don't sleep, Master.”

Ren threw Aoba a questioning look, and the latter replied with a small tilt of the head as if to say it would be better not to ask further. Ren took the unspoken advice and buried himself under the blanket, exhaling softly as the tension that he had accumulated in his body from that day's events eased at the prospect of a decent rest. He bid both Aoba and Clear good night and almost instantly fell into a deep sleep.

 

* * *

 

_He was weightless, lying in the shallow water like that. The water blocked all sounds out, so even if the Church was nearby, it was as if he was in a place faraway, where he could wish to be alone._

_Unfortunately, he was not alone, not even here._

_A shadow was cast over him, coming from a figure standing to his side. He could see a smile, but all of the other person's remaining features were vague and dark. The other held out something to him, a blue flower, one yet to bloom._

_The stranger opened their mouth and began to speak, but the water covering his ears drowned out the words. He wanted to hear them, those words, unlike everything else, but the water did not share the same thoughts. Its impartiality was harsh._

_But the water did allow what the stranger said to reach him in another way, in muffled vibrations that coursed through the water itself. He of course could not understand anything that was being said, as all that came to him were sounds that made no sense._

_And he had no choice but to content himself with that, so he closed his eyes and thought he saw the blue flower bloom in the darkness behind his eyelids._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * _Furisode_ → a type of kimono mainly for single women. It's known for having long sleeves.
> 
> ** _Tsujigiri_ → I chose to use the original Japanese term for drive-by, mainly because I like the nuance of the term. A _tsujigiri_ (“crossroads killing”) connotes much more randomness in choosing victims. In actual tsujigiri, samurai tested out new swords they got or techniques they created by stabbing random people who happened to be nearby (and this usually happened at crossroads hence the name). While “drive-by” (shooting) kinda captures the same senselessness of killing, I think _tsujigiri_ still has much more spontaneity; “drive-by” has a sense of it being planned (?), i.e., there's usually a particular target and plan of action (plus the presence of a vehicle), no matter how crude it could be. ~~Please ignore me I tend to overthink a lot of things.（πーπ）~~
> 
> *** “The same goes for me.” → I know that “The pleasure is mine” is the usual translation for Ren's _kochira koso_ , but I found the reply a little awkward when he repeats it for Aoba's second line (about depending on Ren for the future too), so I thought I could change it to something less awkward sounding…? ~~I am an awkward burrito, I apologize.~~
> 
>  **A/N:** Aiyaaaa….first of all, I would like to apologize to those who are reading this fic QuQ I was supposed to update earlier, but a lot of things happened (one of which was me coming down with a bad case of the flu this past week ksadfhdsakjfhaskdf I am not good with cold weather).
> 
> So, yes, Beni is a kimono artist/designer. Specifically a _yuzen_ artist. It's a well-known style that involves using starch to outline parts of the design so the different colors don't bleed over each other. :D If you have any spare time, look up some videos of it. It's a really interesting art!
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter -bows-


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